


Where Do We Go Now?

by FeralCreed



Series: Finding Bucky [3]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Crack, Darcy is a bamf, Depression, F/M, Feels, Flashbacks, Fluff, Happy Ending, How Do I Tag This, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry, M/M, Medical issues, Nightmares, PTSD, Slow Burn, Steve just wants to help, aou semi-compliant, bucky has problems, headcanons, i don't really know how to tag this, mcu - Freeform, most of it is pg13, or at least not-sad ending, rape mention, really slow burn, self-harm mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 23,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4975399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralCreed/pseuds/FeralCreed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's left the Tower. He's not really sure who he is or what he's supposed to be doing, and he wants both those questions answered before he goes back to Steve, but figuring things out might be harder than he's expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Bucky didn't have a plan. While leaving the Tower he'd started scraping one together, maybe getting twelve percent of the way done, but it changed almost instantly. Maybe being on the run without a plan wouldn't matter this time. Usually, proceeding without a plan was punishable. Natalia had told him that he was operating independent of HYDRA now, under a new set of rules, without any in control over him. His new mission parameters allowed him to proceed without a plan.

That night he ended up in a HYDRA safehouse hidden under an old barn that had been marked as condemned. Since it was half an hour's drive from the city, it took Bucky all day to walk there. It was perfectly structurally sound but it was best to keep people out of it as much as possible. Those who came around were killed if they managed to find the way into the safehouse. Once Bucky got there he kicked aside the moldy hay scattered across the floor of one of the stalls and fitted his metal fingers into a knothole in one of the boards.

The house alarm went off as soon as Bucky stepped across the threshold into the bunker. He shut it down with the proper code words, relieved that the safehouse hadn't been compromised. If SHIELD had been here they wouldn't have been able to reset it with the same code word – the memory chip with the password in it burned out as soon as the alarm was tripped. Even without the alarm, Bucky could tell from the dust that the safehouse hadn't been entered in months.

Once the harsh blare of the alarm had faded into a faintly ringing silence, Bucky let out a shaky breath and continued inside. He'd always hated that sound. Usually it meant the mission had gone wrong and they were dragging a bleeding body and a host of weapons from the car in an effort to get to a defendable position before someone caught up with them. Someone screamed in his ear, high and panicked like a wounded child, as gunfire pinged against the safehouse bunker doors. Bucky shook himself out of it and moved down the rest of the short flight of stairs. Inside everything was laid out as if on a grid, orderly and well-stocked.

Bucky poked around, knowing from experience the general way things would be set up. At the far end of the safehouse would be the kitchen area, with a stove, microwave, refrigerator, and pantry. The entry area had a radio and television, chairs and a table, and a cabinet against one wall holding basic supplies. In between the two were the barracks, five square rooms not much larger than the bed and dresser they contained. The middle square on the left-hand side was a bathroom rather than a sixth bedroom, sparsely equipped with a toilet, sink, and shower.

Bucky checked each of the rooms before convincing himself the area was clear. Each of the beds were made and each of the dressers held three changes of clothes in several sides. The chairs and table were all plastic and of generic make. Inside the cabinet in the front room he found first aid kits, spare weapons parts and cleaning kits, extra blankets, flashlights, and similar paraphernalia that might be needed by agents on the run. While the refrigerator was empty, the pantry was stocked with a variety of MREs and canned foods, and there were almost two hundred gallons of water stacked along the far wall. The walls themselves, like the floor and ceiling, were unpainted concrete occasionally marred by bullet holes.

Bucky took a backpack from a row of hooks in the corner of the front room and carried it into the bedroom between the bathroom and the kitchen. He dumped it out onto the bed, examining what was inside with a critical eye. It was evidently a premade package, containing a first-aid kit, blanket, half a dozen MREs, three bottles of water, a knife, a flashlight, a hand-sized multipurpose tool, a burner phone, five hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills, a radio, a box of matches, and a rain poncho. Somehow he managed to pack it all back inside, and he set the pack on top of the dresser. From there he'd be able to grab it as he got out of bed, in case he needed to leave at a moment's notice. After pulling the plastic off the bed and depositing it in the huge fifty-gallon garbage can situated in the front room, he turned his attention to the prospect of dinner. 

He didn't have much in the way of choices, so he went with the first MRE packet he pulled off the shelf. The print on the bag said meatloaf but since he didn't remember what that was supposed to taste like, he didn't care. As he poked at the slightly dubious-looking meal with a plastic fork, he couldn't help remembering the meal Natalia had made for him, Steve, and Clint a couple nights ago. While he remembered the meal well enough, he couldn't remember if he'd thanked her. The Asset had never thanked anyone for anything. He wasn't sure he remembered how to do it. Once he'd eaten, he dumped the MRE package into the trash can and went into the front room to check the television for news. Nothing regarding SHIELD, HYDRA, or the Avengers showed up, so he turned it back off and went straight to the barracks.

He woke up screaming in just under two hours. As images from his nightmares crowded into his brain, faceless voices shrieking into his ears, he pushed his back against the wall and hugged his arms tightly across his chest. The one thing he hadn't yet found in the safehouse was a weapon, and now he bitterly regretted not having a gun or knife in his hands. While they were useless against the phantom-like world that tortured him at night, they would have been better than nothing.

“You are never defenseless, Asset,” a German-accented voice barked at him. “Do you think we made that arm out of titanium alloys so you could cry into it at night? It's a weapon. Use it like one!”

Bucky shifted his left arm out in front of him, bending at at the elbow and resting it across his knees. He didn't remember the name or face of the man yelling at him from the past, but he guessed it was one of his many handlers or trainers. Some of them he'd ended up killing, and he'd wounded a dozen more. Few people had wanted the job of dealing with him on a daily basis. Rumlow had been the only exception that Bucky knew of, but that didn't mean much to him. If he hadn't known his own name, he wasn't likely to remember much about HYDRA's staffing.

He did, however, remember enough about them to track them down. That would be his new mission. Bucky sat awake in the darkness, slowly putting together the pieces of a plan. Each one was methodical and leading to the greater purpose. While the Avengers and the government had failed, up until this point, to finish rounding up HYDRA stragglers – they couldn't even find all of their own operatives after the helicarrier crash – Bucky had an advantage. Any of the remaining HYDRA bases or officers would sacrifice anything to be the ones to bring the Winter Soldier back into HYDRA's armory. If he could find them he would be invited inside with open arms. Bucky clenched his metal fingers tightly, listening to the gears whir faintly. He would wipe them out.

Bucky didn't get back to sleep that night. Instead he showered, dressed, and checked the safehouse for weapons. He found two knives and a pistol with an extra clip; he put a knife in each of his boots and slipped the pistol into his jeans, against the small of his back. By sunrise he'd eaten another MRE, wiped down the counters with a towel, and had made the bed, smoothing the plastic down over it. At first glance, apart from the dust being disturbed it would look like nobody had ever been there. Since he'd put all his garbage in a bag, it was more than simple to take it to the empty metal drum he'd noticed outside the barn, strike a match, and leave it to burn out.

Buckling the pack across his waist, Bucky started walking down the road. It took him about three hours to reach the actual city of New York, rather than the suburbs. His hair was barely long enough to pull back and he'd let his scruff grow out into a short beard, so he didn't look much like the Winter Soldier that people would have seen on the news. Even if someone thought they did recognize him, they wouldn't be looking for the world's most feared assassin in a Wal-Mart. At the first store he found, he walked inside and took a look at the electronics section. While he didn't know much about technology, all he needed was whatever had the lowest price tag. He added a box of Pop-Tarts to his purchase, used the self-checkout, and got out of the store unchallenged.

He stopped in the nearest alley and used one of his knives to get the laptop out of its packaging. The warranty and owner's manual he tossed with the box, and slid the device into his pack. He also took the Pop-Tarts out of the box and stacked the foil-wrapped items on the top of the rest of his belongings. Although he'd thought it strange that there had been half a dozen boxes in Steve's pantry at the Tower, he guessed that there must be some value to them. Bucky tossed the empty wrappings from the laptop and food into the nearest trash can and started back toward the safehouse. A truck and trailer passed him and he hopped onto the back of the latter, crouching down and using his metal arm to hold on so that the driver wouldn't notice.

Once he got back to the safehouse, he kicked the door closed behind him and cased all the rooms before returning to the front room. He set the laptop down on the table and turned it on, waiting for it to get into a working state so he could start his research. It wasn't hard to find a starting point, since it had been impossible for all of SHIELD's files to be pulled from the internet. He downloaded the ones that had information he needed – names, dates, locations, pictures. Although it wasn't much to work off of, since locations had been abandoned and names changed, it was better than nothing. While he wanted to focus on American bases for the moment, he would undoubtedly be going overseas sooner or later if he could manage it. Such trips generally needed passports, which would be slightly difficult for him to come by. For now, he simply needed to find a place to start looking. When he found something... then he'd be able to actually do something.


	2. Chapter Two

Steve woke up alone but didn't think much of it. Bucky was probably sleeping on the couch, or off making margaritas with Clint. A grin slipped across his lips for a moment as he remembered the sight of the two men falling out of the vents laughing. He stretched and rolled over onto his stomach. When he didn't need to run off to save the world, he liked to wake up slowly. It took him almost ten minutes to finally get out into the common room, rubbing his eyes as he went. Clint was passed out on the cot but Bucky was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, JARVIS, where's Bucky?”

“Mr. Barnes claimed to be going to the library to find a copy of the Lord of the Rings, sir.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked. “How about that. Good. Let me know when he comes back, will you?”

“I will, Captain Rogers.”

“Thanks.” Steve started making coffee, trusting that the smell would get Clint up.

“Coffee,” the archer mumbled gratefully. He poured a cup for Steve and took the rest for himself. “What's on the agenda today for you and Bucky?”

“JARVIS said he actually went to the library earlier,” Steve said with a proud grin. “When he comes back he'll probably be reading for the rest of the day. He always read whenever he could. Fastest reader I ever met. Usually when I was sick he'd read something to me.”

“He actually left the Tower?” Clint asked, raising his eyebrows. “I honestly didn't think he'd be ready for that for, well, months. After all, HYDRA didn't leave him with much to work with up here, y'know?” While his words could easily have been taken as an insult, it only took one look to convince Steve that Clint didn't mean it that way. “Think he'll make it back without a panic attack?”

“I hope so,” Steve said.

“Him coming back wouldn't be much of a secret if the Avengers had to rescue a restaurant full of people or something,” Clint agreed. “Not that he'd do it intentionally, but if he fugues he doesn't know what he's doing.”

“He'll be fine,” Steve told him. “Are you staying for breakfast?”

“Nah, I have to be at what's left of SHIELD. Something with paperwork or something, I don't even know. I think they're trying to get a handle on how many people they have left and if they were HYDRA or not. You'd think being a part of the Avengers would get me a free pass, but it doesn't look that way. But Natasha's going in too so at least we can do something fun if it gets boring.”

“Barton, I'm not bailing you out of jail if something backfires on you.”

“Steve, I'm insulted. You think I'd get caught if I didn't want to be?”

Steve could only shake his head. “Have fun, then, Barton.”

“Will do, Cap.” Clint slid off the counter, poured the rest of the coffee into a mug, and wandered toward the elevator. “You have fun, too!”

“I better not see anything on the news,” Steve called after him. Clint laughed as the elevator doors closed.

It wasn't until lunchtime that Steve started to get worried about Bucky. “JARVIS, has Bucky not come back yet?”

“He has not, Captain Rogers,” the AI replied.

By dinnertime, Steve was frantic. He burst into Tony's lab with complete disregard for whatever project he was working on. “Stark, I need you to do something for me.”

“Yeah, hold on a second,” Tony said.

“No, Tony, I won't. This needs to be done right now. Bucky's been missing all day, and he doesn't have a phone or money.”

“Let me guess, you want me to look through the city via security cameras and find your boy for you? That stuff usually only works in the movies, but I'll do it anyway.”

“What else can you do?” Steve demanded.

Tony shrugged. “I can send out people to look for him but that would reveal him being here. Otherwise there's not much unless you want to send our team out. Any idea where Bucky might be?”

“JARVIS said he was planning to go to the library. He was gone before I woke up.”

Tony nodded and pulled up a holographic notepad. “So, libraries. I'll have JARVIS run through footage since they opened today. And the streets around here, we can get an idea of which way he was going. If he left the city we won't have as much to go on, but we will have a direction.”

“Thanks, Tony. And I'm sorry for coming into your lab like I did.”

“Hey, you're worried.” Tony waved his hand dismissively. “When Pepper got kidnapped I was the same way. Not saying that Bucky is kidnapped, just that he's missing. Don't worry, I'll have JARVIS tell you as soon as he finds something. Or you can stay here. The beanbags are still over in the corner.”

Steve hesitated for a moment, then went over to the beanbags. If Bucky was in some kind of trouble, it would be better if he was on hand. He was only kept waiting a few minutes before JARVIS made a dinging sound, not dissimilar from the elevator's noise. At a few words from Tony, he pulled up a video of Bucky outside the Tower. “What's he saying?” Steve asked, his brow furrowing as he stared at the holograph.

“If I may, Captain Rogers, my programming includes lip-reading lexicons,” JARVIS offered.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Steve agreed.

“Mr. Barnes said, 'Gotta go. I'm sorry, Stevie',” JARVIS reported.

“Oh, my God,” Steve said, his weight rocking back onto his heels. “He-He left?”

“It would appear so, Captain Rogers.”

“JARVIS, track him,” Tony ordered. The video footage moved ahead rapidly through dozens of cameras, chasing Bucky's route out of the city. “Any idea where he's going from there?”

“None, sir.”

“Thanks. Well, Steve, now what? Your boy ran off on you.”

“He's not mine.” Steve answered on instinct. “And he made a choice that I'm going to respect. JARVIS, he seems to be pretty normal, right?”

“He gave no indications otherwise, Captain Rogers.”

Steve sighed, bringing his hands up to scrub his face. “Then we leave him alone." He dropped his hands and his blue eyes looked tired. "And I mean that, Tony. Don't track him down. If he needs his space, then I'll give it to him.”

“And what if he starts misbehaving? Huh?" Tony pointed his pen at Steve. "What if we get a body count?”

“Then we move in,” Steve decided. “But not before. If Bucky wants to try to figure things out on his own, I'm the last person with the right to deny him that. He should be able to have free will.”

“Just as long as nobody gets hurt.” Tony shrugged and cut off the video feed with a swipe of his hand. “Anything else you need, Cap?”

“No, Tony. Just let me know if he comes back into the city, if you can.”

“Yup.”

Steve left Tony's lab and took the elevator back to his floor. He'd texted Clint and Natasha about Bucky's disappearance. Clint had said he was coming up but Steve had replied that he'd rather be alone. While Steve was sure Clint didn't have the tact to actually listen to him, Natasha apparently did, because neither of them made an appearance. He crawled into bed and pulled his legs to his chest, thinking of a shy dark-haired man that had been there just a short day ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to have every other chapter from Steve's viewpoint, but I didn't want to abandon him without explaining how he first reacted to finding Bucky gone. Tomorrow we get back to Bucky's plan! And lack thereof. Steve is going to show up later in the work, though, because honestly Bucky is 1000% incapable of keeping himself out of trouble.


	3. Chapter 3

If Bucky lived through this, Steve was going to kill him. That is, if HYDRA left anything for the blond super-soldier to work with. He dove for the shelter of a stack of crates, checked the clip in his pistol, and swore under his breath. When had this seemed like a good idea? It had been going fine until a couple of minutes ago, when he'd made a mistake and all hell had broken loose.

 

The actual beginning of this mission had been a couple weeks ago. From the internet, street talk, and other sources, Bucky had pieced together enough information to realize there was a strong chance that a New Jersey base had survived the HYDRA/SHIELD takedown. He had left his safehouse to find out, carefully cleansing his living space of any signs he'd been there before going. Since he was moving on foot it took him the better part of a week to find the approximate area of the base, and another four days to find the base itself. If he hadn't gotten a lucky break and been in a grocery store at the same time as a couple of HYDRA agents – there was a subtle but definite something marking them that was ingrained into his senses – it probably would have taken another week.

 

He didn't follow the agents right away. All the roads in this small town were dirt, so he used one of his knives to cut out part of the tread on both of the right-hand tires. Wherever that truck went, its tire marks would be different from the rest of the vehicles in the area. Once he'd marked the tires he retreated to the forest at one edge of town. Nightfall would give him the necessary cover to explore the town and see if there were any HYDRA in the town itself.

 

With nightfall came a slight looseness in Bucky's shoulders. Daylight left him exposed to eyes and cameras, but once it was dark only special equipment could differentiate him from the shadows. He liked staying hidden, at least for now. He wasn't sure if he was ready to be seen yet. There was nothing of interest in the town, at least not from the viewpoint of an assassin or HYDRA. Bucky left town, headed in the same direction that he'd seen the agents' truck leave in earlier. At the first crossroads he took out his flashlight and shined it on the ground. There was little traffic and a distinctive mark to track the vehicle, so it didn't take much effort for Bucky to follow it.

 

Bucky jogged down the road, stopping only when he had to check a driveway or turnoff for the special tire tracks he was following. He found nothing for thirteen long miles, until the tracks he was following turned off onto dirt that gave way to asphalt after half a mile. There was a formidable fence half a mile after that, with a gate and guardhouse that could prove a challenge if he didn't handle it correctly. Moving forward a few inches at a time, stalking patiently as he'd been trained to do, he finally found a line of sight into the guardhouse. Only one guard was present that he could see, but it wasn't the lazy kind he'd usually found on his missions. This man was HYDRA trained and ready to kill if he had to. Bucky didn't plan on giving him the opportunity.

 

It was no hard task for the Winter Soldier to get to the guardhouse unseen. While the gate area was flooded with lights, the rest of the road and forest were pitch black by comparison. He moved quickly but cautiously, and was almost upon the guardhouse before the man inside noticed that anyone else was around. The guard moved to the window to see better and Bucky punched through the glass, grabbed the man by the throat, and pulled him out. Only seconds later the man was dead and Bucky was stripping the body for its uniform.

 

Bucky hated the way the heavy black material felt against his body. He'd worn similar clothes too many times, each occasion marking waves of blood. This time his mission parameters didn't allow for murder, simply because he had no mission parameters. For once he was calling all of the shots in the field. As he finished putting the uniform on, he decided that this mission would not include killing except in self-defense. He needed to scope the installment before going in to attack.

 

He left the body of the guard where he'd killed it and climbed into the guardhouse through the window. There was a computer there and he needed only a swipe of the guard's keycard to access the information there. Most of it was little squares of video from surveillance cameras. Likely the feeds were streamed to memory banks and reviewed at later dates. Eventually HYDRA would know he had been here, so the timeframe on his mission had been moved up considerably. Valuable information came in the form of a list of clearance codes and names of people allowed access to the base. Bucky had brought a flash drive with him and he plugged it into the appropriate outlet on the board. As the files downloaded he browsed through them, using his burner phone to snap pictures of the especially important ones. They would come in useful later.

 

There was a golf cart behind the fence but Bucky left it where it was. He moved nearly as quickly as the machine and much more quietly. None of his fragmented memories hinted to any kind of traps along the entry roads to HYDRA bases, so he threw away caution and ran down the road at his top speed. Once the road sloped downward he slowed down, cautious of what could be waiting inside. CCTV and guards were a given, but he wasn't sure if there was anything else he needed to watch out for.

 

There were two cameras and eight guards just around the first bend of the tunnel. Most people would have walked right into the trap but Bucky had heard the guards' breathing and the cameras whirring. He ran into their midst with his longer knife in his right hand and his metal fingers clutched into a fist. Bucky slit the throat of the first two guards before they had time to defend themselves. The others fired a barrage of shots, but his metal arm deflected most of those that didn't miss. One grazed his flesh arm and another the flesh just above his hips. The spike of pain pushed him into anger, and he let out a shout of rage as he lunged forward. He broke a man's neck with his bare hands and kicked another into the wall so hard the guard's neck snapped. It was easy to take the dead man's weapon and kill the remaining guards.

 

Bucky took whatever weapons he could find on the guards and kept moving. His mission parameters had been readjusted. Casualties were now not only acceptable but desirable. There were twenty-three guards in the tunnel before he came to the actual HYDRA base. None of them lived. Another gate was set across the entrance to the base, and Bucky took out the guards and the lock with some well-placed sniper fire. Somewhere an alarm started blaring and Bucky's teeth gritted together in mixed fear and adrenaline. He knocked the butt of one of the rifles against the lock, pushing the gate open, and boldly walked inside.

 

There were more agents on the other side of the fence. He'd walked into what seemed like a garage of sorts, and from the opposite end at least twenty men had swarmed through a set of double doors. Bucky froze where he stood and started shooting. In minutes the men lay dead and Bucky had another bullet wound. Since the projectile wasn't lodged in his body he kept moving. The next half hour was spent in mixed hand-to-hand combat and shoot-outs. He left none of the agents alive. With all the noise he was making, he knew the senior agents at the base were probably fleeing the premises, but he would be able to track them down easily enough later. For now his concern was getting supplies and killing HYDRA agents.

 

Both of those things happened easily. It took him nearly an hour to work his way to the center of the base and make sure the base floor was clear. He'd found several dozen caches of supplies, including food, weapons, and explosives. The Winter Soldier would consider it child's play to bring the building down behind him. Once he was clear he would call the Avengers in for clean-up and recon. He found a central security station and leaned over the back of a chair as he cycled through camera feeds. From what he could see, the base was clear except for the underground holding cells.

 

Bucky swore. If there were people down there, he couldn't leave them to die. He was screaming in Pierce's face in protest and the Secretary was staring at him with his arms crossed. “You can leave anyone to die,” the man instructed him. “Even yourself. Hit him again.” The electricity tore through his body and Bucky reawakened to the present day with a gasp.

 

“Not this time, you bastard,” he growled. He shot out the computer monitor and started moving toward the cell block. When he got there he found no records of prisoners and there were no guards, so he went through the rows cell by cell. There were only half a dozen people there, all panicked, some out of their minds. He told them the way out and ordered them to leave. At first they stared at him in shock, their minds incapable of processing this turn of events, but when he brandished his gun and screamed in their faces, they fled.

 

“Goddamn you, Winter,” drawled a rasping voice. Bucky flinched and brought his pistol up. “Putting me out of my misery?” the voice scoffed.

 

“Where are you?” Bucky demanded, glancing briefly over his shoulder before facing forward again.

 

“There's some kind of secret door in the wall ahead of you. I don't know how they get in and out, but it's there.”

 

Bucky examined the wall and found a section of the concrete that was outlined by a thin crack. He pressed on it, then stepped back, firming his grasp on his pistol. Part of the wall swung open and Bucky was framed in the opening, every line of his body tense and ready for action.

 

“Get me out of here, Winter,” the voice pleaded. “I've done enough for you that you could help me enough to set me free instead of shooting me.”

 

Bucky moved forward cautiously, gun at the ready. The room looked like a lab, strewn with instruments and operating tables, with an empty cell in the corner. One of the tables was shrouded behind hospital curtains and Bucky could see the silhouette of a man's body laying on the table. He stepped forward, holding his pistol ready, and pulled back the curtain with his left hand. For a moment the facial features didn't register in his mind, but then he realized who he was looking at. “You,” he said in mingled amazement and anger. “I thought you were dead.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to have a penchant for cliffhangers... Whoops. This was my first time writing a more detailed account of Bucky in action and I've got to say that I really enjoyed it. Hopefully I kept him in character. Even when it seemed like the Soldier's mind was empty I think there was quite a lot going on in there, but of course it can be hard to put that into words. Let me know what you thought! Next chapter was just as much fun to write, though for different reasons, and we see who our newcomer is.


	4. Chapter 4

“Dead? Brock repeated in a raspy voice. “Almost but not quite. Your super-soldier donated some blood to keep me alive for interrogation. If it weren't for whatever cocktail was in his serum I wouldn't be here, especially after that damn building fell on me. HYDRA got me out of the hospital but they decided I would be better off as a lab rat than as a soldier.”

 

“Tough luck,” Bucky said, his voice dry with sarcasm. He turned away from Brock, double-checked the clip in his pistol, and started walking away.

 

“Winter!” Brock yelled after him. “You know what this feels like.” Bucky froze, his finger tensing around the trigger guard of his pistol. “Get me out of here.”

 

Bucky kept his back toward the HYDRA agent. “What for?”

 

“I know I never got you out when you were trapped, but I did the best I could by you. HYDRA would have killed me if I cost them their Asset. But I did what I could. You remember that? And now that those HYDRA bastards have turned their back on me I think it's time to return the favour. I can help you take them down, Winter. We want the same thing.”

 

Bucky turned around and exchanged his pistol for one of the knives, noting the way Brock's body stiffened in fear. He cut the leather cuffs holding Brock to the table and stepped back, watching the man cautiously. “If you try anything, I will kill you,” he promised.

 

“Yeah, I thought so,” Brock said with a snort. He got off the table and immediately fell to his hands and knees. “Little help?” He gritted his teeth against the painful sensations crawling up muscles he hadn't used in days but Bucky was unsympathetic.

 

“If you can catch up by the time I leave you can come with me,” Bucky said. “Otherwise you're on your own.” He left Brock on the floor and walked out of the room, ignoring the other man's cursing. Finishing a scan of the bottom level didn't take long, since there were only a couple places he hadn't been able to see with the security cameras. When he was done he returned to the stockpiles of supplies he'd found. There were plenty of metal carts around, and Bucky loaded a pair with what he wanted to take with him.

 

Brock stumbled into the garage as Bucky was finishing loading up one of the vehicles. There were half a dozen trucks of civilian make, and Bucky had chosen a black two-door pickup with a long bed. He pulled a tarp over the supplies he'd stacked in the bed and tied it down with bungee cords. Keys to all the vehicles were hanging on a corkboard at one side of the garage but Bucky didn't want to waste the time to find the right ones. He hotwired the truck and revved the engine, then put it in park as he waited for Brock to get in. Though he wasn't particularly excited about bringing someone with him, he'd told Brock he could tag along if he made it in time and he intended on keeping his word. The ex-agent moved gingerly and grunted as his foot banged against the truck's chassis. As soon as he closed the door, Bucky shifted into drive and stepped on the gas.

 

Brock yelped as the vehicle shot forward, slamming through the chain-link gates and leaving thick rubber streaks on the asphalt. “Didn't you ever learn how to drive?” he demanded. “This is not how you do it!”

 

“Depends on what you mean by 'learn',” Bucky answered, spinning the wheel to the right hard enough that Brock's entire right side was pressed against the door. “Practical application was part of my programming but I was never allowed to actually drive.”

 

“I am gonna die,” Brock muttered, bracing his forearm against the frame of the window.

 

“Only if you try to betray me,” Bucky assured him. “My hand-eye coordination and motor reflexes are advanced beyond your own. We won't die from my driving.”

 

“Are you sure about that?” Brock gritted his teeth as Bucky pressed on the gas to turn sharply onto the main road, the left wheels tipping up off the ground. “Jesus!”

 

“Nope, just me,” Bucky replied absentmindedly, glancing in the rearview mirror for any sign of the HYDRA officials that had undoubtedly escaped or any other vehicles. The road behind and ahead of them was straight but he pushed the truck far beyond the speed limit anyway. He pulled the burner phone out of his pocket, dialed in Steve's number, and held the phone between his shoulder and ear as he drove. When the call connected he started talking before Steve could speak. “Hey, I took out a HYDRA base in southeastern New Jersey. No surviving agents but there were some prisoners that escaped. I told them to go to the Tower. Might have been experiments of some kind or just prisoners, I don't know. Get them back to their families if they have any. Call you later.” He cut the call and tossed the phone on the dashboard.

 

“There's a safehouse in New York,” Brock said. “We should-”

 

“I know where it is,” Bucky interrupted. “Be quiet.”

 

“You're friendly,” Brock grumbled, but he shut his mouth as Bucky had told him. They both stayed in silence until something lit up on the dashboard. “Running low on gas.”

 

Bucky nodded once and Brock didn't push his luck by offering any other information. They pulled into a gas station just as the needle dipped below E, and Bucky parked the truck by one of the gas pumps under Brock's directions. He'd looted some of the HYDRA agents and had come away with several hundred dollars in cash, and as he and Brock approached the store he pulled out the roll of cash. “How much will we need to fill up the tank?”

 

“Probably fifty. Can we get food?” Brock asked. Bucky shuffled a handful of bills off the roll and handed them over. “Want anything?” When Bucky only shrugged, Brock wandered off down the food aisles. By the time Bucky was done pumping the gas, Brock had gotten several bags full of snacks and a six-pack of energy drinks. “You've probably never had any of this stuff but it was worth the money.”

 

“We need to conserve funds,” Bucky replied, taking the change Brock handed him.

 

“Not if we take on a few contracts. Even I could get some cash together taking jobs, enough to support us at least. Relax and pick something out of the bag.”

 

“I'll eat when we get back to the safehouse.”  
  


“Fine. Your loss.” Brock popped the tab on an energy drink and took a long drink. “Mind if I turn the radio on?”

 

Bucky glanced at him long enough that the truck started weaving across the highway. When Brock gestured rather frantically toward the road he turned his focus back to it. “Put on whatever you want but keep it down,” he said eventually.

 

“Have you listened to any music since you wrecked HYDRA?” Brock asked.

 

“I didn't wreck HYDRA. And no.”

 

“All right, I'll find something good.” Brock flipped on the radio and searched the channels until he found one that predominantly played music from the nineties. “Perfect. Hey, they're playing Elvis!”

 

“Elvis?”

 

“You don't know who Elvis is?” Brock asked, sounding shocked. When Bucky shook his head, he sighed. “Just listen,” he said, and turned the volume up. “Song's called _Hound Dog_. It's a classic.” He tapped his fingers on the door and hummed along as the song played. When the song ended a commercial started and Brock turned to look at Bucky. “Well?”

 

Bucky had cocked his head as he was driving to listen better. Now he straightened up and regarded the road ahead as if it held a deep secret. “It was... different,” he finally said. “What kind of song is it playing now?”

 

“That's not a song, it's a commercial,” Brock explained. “Meant to convince people to buy stuff or go somewhere. Usually not worth listening to but they can be funny sometimes. Want me to find another station with the same kind of music as Elvis?”

 

“If you want,” Bucky said carefully. He sounded indifferent but Brock figured the super-soldier would have said so if he minded. The next station he settled on was halfway through playing _Hotel California_ by The Eagles. “Another classic that's younger than you.”

 

Bucky snorted but he didn't turn the radio off. As the miles passed, he stayed alert at the wheel but Brock was getting tired. He nearly fell asleep several times but always jerked himself awake. Finally Bucky had enough. “Go to sleep,” he ordered. “You're annoying me.”

 

“Fine,” Brock said, words distorted by a yawn. “Change the station if you want. Or turn it off, I don't care.” He pushed the seat back and was asleep in minutes. Bucky left the radio as it was and kept driving. What the hell had he gotten himself into by taking Brock with him?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, the asshole's alive. I promise that Bucky has no idea what he's doing letting Rumlow tag along with him. But there's gonna be some majorly crack mini-scenes here and there because 1) Brock's a sarcastic little bastard and 2) Brock has ideas as to what Bucky's new life should include. Honestly he acts so wounded at Bucky not knowing majorly important cultural references he's almost like Tony. (Don't tell Stark I said that.)
> 
> To be serious, though, it really makes no sense to a strategical observer that Bucky would take Brock with him. I tend to think of Bucky as someone who's actually really sensitive to other people and who wants to give everyone a second chance. While he doesn't necessarily trust them - especially if he has a history with them like he does with Brock - he thinks that it's always possible that they just want to turn their life around. I suppose in a way he's projecting his own emotional desires onto others, but I think it might be a part of his healing process. A lot of trauma victims tend to be more compassionate than 'normal' people and I want to see if that fits in with the rest of the personality that Bucky's rebuilding for himself. We'll find out, I suppose.
> 
> On a completely unrelated note, I have a new favourite line from this fic series: “Another classic that's younger than you.” Seriously, Brock? What are these two even doing I don't know. New chapter tomorrow! As always, feel free to leave comments and questions. I love hearing from my readers.


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky parked the truck inside the barn above the safehouse. Brock had woken up to Miley Cyrus on the radio - “Really, Winter?” - and had insisted they stop for breakfast several hours ago. Since then he'd fallen asleep again, fast food wrappers in his lap, and Bucky wasn't exactly sure what to do with him. He settled for waking him up and leading the way into the safehouse.

 

“Love what you've done with the place,” Brock said. “Is this a one-day stop or are we moving in?”

 

“I've been living here for a month already.” Bucky opened the screen of his laptop and hit the power button. “There's a first aid kit in the cabinet over there. Steve's blood or not, you'll take a while to heal.”

 

“What are you going to be doing?”

 

“Bringing a few things inside. I don't need your help.”

 

“I wasn't gonna offer.” Brock crossed the room and started looking through the cabinet. In the time it took Bucky to come back with several boxes, he'd found the first aid kit and had his shirt off. Bucky examined his injuries with a critical eye as he passed but saw nothing that looked serious. “You're making dinner later,” he informed Brock as he sat down at the table.

 

“Winter, I once set the kitchen on fire trying to microwave a hot dog. I have scars from what was supposed to be a Thanksgiving dinner. Dinner is on you.”

 

Bucky stared at him. “You're kidding me.”

 

“I really wish I was. Every time I tried to eat a hot dog Rollins yelled out a warning. Little bastard drove me crazy. Heard he got murdered in prison.”

 

“Who was he?”

 

“He was on the STRIKE team. Used to work with us, running missions with you and stuff, but Pierce wanted as many people in SHIELD as possible.” Brock crinkled the wrappers he was holding and threw them into the trash can. “Got caught trying to cross the border and got put in a maximum security facility so he'd live for a trial. Wasn't good enough.”

 

“Who was he to you?”

 

“Best friend, if you can have one in HYDRA. He was a good guy as far as mercenaries go. Came from a small farm town in Idaho, he told me. Always wondered how he ended up with killers. Well, he's dead now, so it doesn't matter. You really want me blowing up your kitchen trying to make food?”

 

“See if you can do something that doesn't include explosions. And leave me alone when I'm working. If something starts burning, I'll smell the smoke.”

 

“I'm real confident,” Brock muttered. “If something happens, it's on you.”

 

“Quiet.”

 

Brock flipped him off and got a smirk in return. He wandered through the safehouse, poking at things and rummaging through the pantry, before returning to the front room. “So what do I get to do all day?”

 

“I'll knock you out if you keep bothering me.”

 

“Your bad people skills aside, I would appreciate an answer.”

 

“You're the one who wanted to come with me. You figure it out.”

 

“I thought I'd have something to work with. How much help am I going to be standing here with nothing but my own two hands?”

 

Bucky hissed out a sigh and closed the laptop so he could glare directly at Brock. “What do you want?”

 

“A job or something.”

 

“If you keep from driving me crazy today I'll take you to get a laptop tomorrow.”

 

“Deal,” Brock agreed. “Which room is yours?”

 

“Last one on the left.”

 

Brock went into the room across from Bucky's and shut the door. Left to himself, Bucky settled down to work. He plugged the flash drive into his laptop and duplicated the files onto the laptop's hard drive. During the last month since he'd gotten the machine, he'd learned how to operate it fairly well. The files he had previously copied off the internet thanks to Natasha matched up with most of what he had gotten from last night. When there were differences he went with whatever agreed with the majority of the information. He wished he had Stark's tech available but he realized using it would have probably been much harder than the simple laptop he was currently equipped with.

 

Brock came out of his room around noon. “Hey, do you eat lunch?” he yelled to Bucky as he went into the kitchen.

 

“Shut up,” Bucky replied.

 

Brock shook his head and started getting things out of the pantry. Half an hour later he came out with two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on paper plates. “I'm surprised you haven't gotten any apples yet. You could have stopped at a store on the way here.”

 

“What are those?” Bucky replied, staring at the food.

 

“You remember what lunch is, right? One of the meals of the day? HYDRA starved you enough that I'll be damned if I do the same. Assassin or not, you're still human. Come on, Winter, eat your food, will you? I don't want it wasted.” Brock set one of the plates down on the laptop's keyboard and hopped up onto the table with the other sandwich in hand.

 

Bucky didn't touch it. “I told you to leave me alone.”

 

“Even though you don't remember it, I don't listen very well.” Brock licked peanut butter off a finger. “Hey, you gonna eat or not?” Bucky picked at the crust of the bread with a fingernail, looking skeptical. “I promise I didn't poison it. Safe for eating. Want me to take a bite to prove it?”

 

“Don't touch my food,” Bucky ordered, pulling a knife from his belt.

 

“Eat it, then.”

 

Bucky poked at the food again, then picked it up and took a bite. He stared suspiciously at Brock. “I thought you said you couldn't cook.”

 

“Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches don't count as cooking, Winter. All you need is the basic ingredients and a knife. Hopefully it tastes okay.”

 

“Better than the last thing HYDRA tried to feed me.”

 

“I'm not HYDRA any more, remember? And you know it tastes good.”

 

Bucky shrugged. “Good enough.”

 

“What have you even been eating since you got here? Looks like the MREs are the only things you've touched.”

 

“I didn't know what to do with the rest of it. Never seen food like that before, or I don't remember.”

 

“Whatever isn't meant to be cooked, I can try. Like the sandwiches. They were pretty good, right?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“You're hard to impress. I bet deep-dish pizza could do the trick.”

 

“What's pizza?”

 

“Jesus, you poor bastard. First chance we have I'm getting you a pizza.”

 

Bucky snorted. “I doubt it's that impressive. HYDRA agents haven't shown fine tastes in the past.”

 

“But you're forgetting something important, Winter. I am _ex_ -HYDRA. Whatever notions about agents you have don't apply. And you are going to be impressed by pizza.”

 

“We'll see. Go away, Brock. I need to work.”

 

“Fine, fine. Want me to take your plate?” Bucky handed it over without a word and Brock took both of them to the garbage can in the corner. “Let me know when you want to do dinner.” He retreated to his room, leaving Bucky alone. A few minutes later he poked his head out. “Oh, if you have internet, check out YouTube. Unlimited access to free music. Including Elvis.”

 

“Go away, Brock.” The ex-agent disappeared again but a minute later he could hear Elvis' _Jailhouse Rock_ playing from the front room and smirked.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realized that last chapter's notes were practically another chapter in and of themselves... Whoops. I've got a tendency to ramble, I guess. Elvis and pizza are prominent in this chapter because that's basically what my evening consisted of and real life tends to influence my writing in little details like that. This chapter holds a lot of dialogue and little action, but things are gonna start picking up soon. Bucky is incapable of staying out of trouble.
> 
> I'll confess right here and now that Brock is probably gonna be OOC a bit at times. This is my first time ever writing him so I'm still trying to get a handle on how he acts, talks, etc. Oh well, guess I'll have to rewatch The Winter Soldier. Poor me.
> 
> Bucky, though, he's been fun to write, especially now that he has another sarcastic assassin to verbally spar with. Honestly I don't know which of them would get the bigger kick out of messing with the Avengers. A kick in the ass to both of them, probably, but hey. Neither one of them would mind much.
> 
> Also, come visit me on tumblr! the-starry-seas.tumblr.com


	6. Chapter 6

While Brock hadn't exactly left Bucky alone, Bucky still took him to get a laptop the next day. He gave Brock a roll of twenty-dollar bills and waited in the truck, hat pulled down over his face and arms crossed. Brock insisted on stopping at a strip mall on the way back to the base to get food, and returned to the truck with a steaming pizza box balanced on one hand and three shopping bags held in the other.

“What is that?” Bucky asked, focusing on the smell coming from the box.

“This is pepperoni pizza,” Brock explained. He set the bags on the floor next to his feet, pulled the door shut, and opened the lid. “Want a piece?”

“Only if you want to avoid a knife in your stomach.”

“You really do have horrible people skills.” Brock took out two pieces, keeping one for himself and passing the other one over. He noticed Bucky watching him and demonstrated how to hold a piece of pizza and eat it. “So what do you think?” he asked after Bucky had swallowed the first bite. In response Bucky reached over for the entire box, grabbed it, and set it down in his lap. “Does this mean you're not going to share?”

It took them half an hour to finish the pizza, and Bucky did share. They ended up cutting the lid off the pizza box and using the two halves of cardboard as oversized plates. Since Brock had thought ahead and gotten napkins and two bottles of soda, and Bucky turned the radio on, the meal was actually enjoyable. When they were done Brock got out of the truck to throw the pizza box away and Bucky told him to get another one for later.

The ride back to the base was uneventful. Bucky dealt with putting the food away since Brock was dealing with his new laptop. When Brock's computer was finally finished with its startup, Bucky passed over the flash drive with all his information on it. He insisted that they sit side by side so he could keep an eye on what Brock was doing, but all Rumlow did was read the information Bucky had collected.

They did it again the next day. Rumlow had known about more safehouses than had been revealed on the internet, and he bought a few maps at the store. When they got back to the base, he pinned them to the wall with steak knives in the upper corners and used tines from forks that Bucky had broken to mark the bases he remembered. There were a surprising amount of broken forks but Brock didn't ask any questions about them. A good quarter of his work was reminding Bucky to eat three times a day and to bathe every night. A good half of it was bringing Bucky back to reality when he went into fugue from reading or seeing something in HYDRA's files.

“Considering your history with all this stuff, are you sure you should be reading through it all?” It was the second time in as many hours that Brock had had to bring Bucky back to reality and the ex-agent wasn't known for his patience.

“I can't hide from this forever. Might as well face it now.” Bucky dragged his hands down over his face, which was looking rather haggard, and shifted in his chair to get back to work.

“Not all at once,” Brock protested. “Let's face it, if you fugue too deeply you're gonna go for my throat. I'd rather not die, so take it slow, okay? Besides, if you try to force it all into your brain at once you'll probably forget about most of it anyway. I learned that in high school.”

“What kind of terrorist organization was high school?”

“For someone who doesn't remember it, you describe it freakishly well. High school is a set of years in the American education system. Teenagers, mostly. Annoying as hell, takes up most of your time Monday through Friday, and you forget most of what you learn after the school year ends.”

“Then what's the point of it?” Bucky asked.

“Beats me. So, are we going to go a little slower with the information intake?”

“Are you ever going to shut up when I ask you?”

“My answer would be no, but yours doesn't have to be.”

“Fine.” Bucky brought his hands back up to the keyboard and Brock went back to his own laptop. “You're cooking dinner for that.”

“We'll see about that.”

Four hours later, there was a squabble over who would cook dinner. Rumlow cited his previous history with cooking and Bucky threw a knife into the wall near Rumlow's head. Brock went into the kitchen to make dinner. Half an hour later smoke and cursing were emitting from the kitchen in equally large measures. If there were smoke alarms in the safehouse they would have all been blaring, but as it was Brock was doing a good job of taking their place.

Bucky picked up a smoking pot and dumped it in the sink. “Are you seriously this incompetent in the kitchen or are you just trying to skive off making dinner?”

“I'm seriously this incompetent,” Brock promised. “Can we just do leftover pizza and some Pop-Tarts?”

“Fine.”

Brock fetched the pizza from the fridge and the Pop-Tarts from the pantry as Bucky dealt with the charred food remains in the pot. They didn't bother moving from the kitchen to eat. Bucky sat up on the counter and Brock leaned against the fridge. “Hey, Winter, catch.” Brock threw a package of Pop-Tarts toward Bucky, who caught it cautiously. “You know how to open those, right?”

“Of course I do. And my name is Bucky.”

“Winter, Bucky, Alex Murphy, Jason Bourne. Same difference, right?” Brock smirked as he bit into a piece of pizza.

“Who are Alex Murphy and Jason Bourne?”

“Movie references. RoboCop and the Bourne trilogy. You should check them out when you get back to Cap. He'd probably get a kick out of them.”

“I don't know if I'm going back or not.”

“Why not? He's the only person you knew from before you were the Winter Soldier, I thought you'd be gluing yourself to him if you thought it would help you to remember stuff.”

“James Barnes fell off a train seventy years ago. The Winter Soldier fell off a helicarrier a couple months ago.” Bucky's brow furrowed as he worked to put words together coherently. “Somewhere in between, something changed. I need to find out what, and who, before I go back to Steve.”

“Just because he was friends with Barnes and the Soldier almost killed him doesn't mean he doesn't want you around,” Brock suggested. “He could be the key to you remembering.”

“I'm still considering killing you in your sleep if you keep being annoying.”

“I'll lock my door at night.”

Bucky made a fist with his metal arm. “That wouldn't stop me.”

“Yeah, I know. Hey, eat your Pop-Tarts. Those things are too good to waste.”

Bucky tore open the wrapper and withdrew a pastry. He noticed Brock watching and glared at him but the ex-agent only told him to hurry. With a roll of his eyes, Bucky broke the pastry in half and put one edge in his mouth. A frankly ridiculous noise of pleasure came from him and it didn't take him long to finish the rest of it. “Stop laughing,” he told Brock, wiping a crumb from his lip.

“That noise,” Brock answered, coughing as his laughter died. “I never thought I'd hear the world's most feared super-assassin squeaking like a frat girl over a Pop-Tart.”

“Well, now you have,” Bucky answered coolly. “Shut up.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Brock shook his head and reached for his drink. “Done for the night with your computer magic? I was thinking that if we turned in early we could plan a recon trip for one of those bases tomorrow.”

“Which one?”

“Doesn't matter. You choose.”

Bucky shrugged as he stepped down from the counter. “Sure.”

“Great. Sweet dreams, Bucky Bourne.”

“I will kill you in the night.”

“Nah, I'm too charming to not have around.”

Bucky snorted but didn't reply. He tossed the Pop-Tart wrapper in the trash and went into his room. Brock took a quick shower and went to bed. While he wasn't sure whether he was actually sleeping or just laying there with his eyes closed, the noise of the door opening alerted him. “Bucky?” he asked sleepily. “I thought you were kidding about killing me.”

“I remembered something,” Bucky answered. “A mission in France.”

“Oh.” Regardless of his previous state, Brock was awake now, and he sat up in bed. “Oh, shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really was planning to put some plot-moving action into this, but not as much happened as I would have hoped. Still, we get a few lines indicating where we're going next. Bucky really is pushing himself too hard with his information intake - I bet y'all appreciated the snark over high school - and it's gonna bite him in the butt later. Oh, and by the way, pizza and Pop-Tarts are not an acceptable diet. Unless you're a college student, then anything goes as far as diet is concerned. Next chapter is going to start off very character-oriented, but I believe we'll get a start on the boys' expedition before the end of it. Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

“At first I had one target,” Bucky remembered. “My orders changed to killing the two men and anyone who got in the way. Two shots to the head with a pistol. Why were they targets? There were children... and a woman. Who were they?”

“Your primary target was a nuclear worker named Mollier,” Brock explained. “Officially he was just a welder who didn't have the clearance to important information. The truth is that HYDRA got him top-level clearance and was paying him for exclusive information. When he tried to double-cross us they sent you after him. It was luck that he was in the same place as another target, a guy named al-Hilli. We got orders in the field to take him out because he saw you. He turned down HYDRA for another contract and HYDRA wanted to make sure people knew that doing that was a mistake.”

“The job wasn't clean. It took too many shots.”

“You were using a pistol at least as old as you were. I'm pretty sure you were the only one capable of making any shot like that. HYDRA wanted the whole thing set up like it was a lone psycho, and that's the theory that the police went with. We moved in and picked the bodies clean before anyone else showed up. It was a pretty good mission.”

“More happened at the safehouse.”

“Nothing we need to talk about,” Brock said, his voice tight. “I told you what I know about the mission. Leave it at that.”

“There was more.” Bucky shifted his weight, instinct telling him to obey Brock's order but desire pushing him on. He spoke slowly as the fragments of memory shifted themselves into place in his head. “We were at a HYDRA safehouse that night. A chopper was coming to take us back to a base. You got a phone call.”

“I said leave it alone. Don't you listen any more?”

“No.” Bucky wasn't sure if he was denying the order or answering the question. “You made me come to you in the night. You ordered me to kill you.”

“It would have put us both out of a lot of misery if you would have just listened.” Brock had given up on trying to stop Bucky but he didn't have to listen quietly. “Next time I ask you, you better come through.”

“My programming didn't let me kill anyone on my team. What happened that made you want to die?”

“I didn't tell you then and I'm not telling you now.” Brock crossed his arms and looked away, studying the floor.

“You made me go to bed with you but you didn't want my body. I-I think you didn't want to be alone. Who was Melissa?”

Brock flinched at the name. “Fuck you, Winter.”

“You were the only handler who never did. Why do you want someone to be with you at night if you don't want sex?”

Brock shrugged, the movement stiff and unnatural. “Sometimes you just need to know there's somebody else around to keep an eye on you. Maybe it makes the darkness a little less scary.”

“You're afraid of the dark?”

“God, no. I'm not five years old any more. There's no monsters coming out of the closet to eat me when the lights go out.”

Bucky looked around the room, puzzled. “There aren't any closets here.”

“It's a figure of speech.”

“You want someone to be with you because it makes you feel safer?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Brock agreed. “Safer and less alone. Make sense?”

Bucky nodded and stepped backward out of the room. He reached for the doorknob but paused before closing the door. “If you hear me screaming at night... Will you come to me?”

“What for?”

“To be less alone.”

“Sure, Bucky. I'll come to you. Now get out and let me go to sleep.”

Bucky closed the door without another word. He retreated to his room and crawled up onto the bed but didn't get under the covers. He pressed his back into the corner and pulled his knees up to his chest. A woman called Melissa. If Brock had lost her while Bucky was with him, the super-soldier wasn't responsible for her death. Was HYDRA? The unsolved mystery intrigued Bucky, but he was barely socially adequate enough to realize that if he pushed Brock on the subject the ex-agent would take off. That would make him a liability, especially if he was recaptured by HYDRA.

It was two in the morning before Bucky started screaming. Since leaving the Tower, his screaming episodes hadn't been as infrequent as they'd been before going to Steve, but even Bucky knew he'd pushed himself too far today. Between the information overload and the memory of the mission, his mind had plenty of bad memories to bring into his dreamworld.

The noise woke Brock up. For a moment he was disoriented but he quickly placed the sound of Bucky's screaming. He'd heard it plenty of times before but he'd never gotten used to it despite its frequency. He was about to turn over and try to block it out of his head when he remembered the promise he'd made. With a groan, he pushed the covers back from his legs and got out of bed, wincing at the coolness of the bare concrete against his skin. He knocked on the door, then banged on it loudly, and the screaming gave way to a sharp intake of breath that Brock could hear even through the door.

“Bucky?” he asked cautiously. “You gonna murder me if I come in?”

“Maybe.”

“Great. Let me know when I can come in without risking my life.”

A minute or so passed in silence. “You can come in,” Bucky said. When Brock opened the door he found the supersoldier sitting on the floor in the corner, gripping a pistol in his hand. Brock noticed the safety was off but didn't mention it.

“Are you stable?” Brock asked.

“Enough.”

“That's comforting. Is the gun for me?”

Bucky seemed to notice he was holding the weapon for the first time. “For me more than anyone else.” He toggled the safety and reached up to put it on top of the dresser.

“You want a hand up?” Brock asked. Bucky didn't say anything but held his hand out. Brock crossed the room and pulled him to his feet. “You're pretty heavy.”

“It's the metal arm. Has more weight on it than you'd think.” Bucky hadn't let go of Brock's hand and he shifted his grip so his fingers were wrapped around the man's wrist. “Stay,” he requested, eyes dull in the dim lighting but an expression of fear sounding their depths.

Brock didn't remember signing up to babysit brainwashed super-soldier assassins, but he didn't think refusing would end up well for him. “Okay. Can I bring my own cot in here? I'm not sleeping on the floor and I'm not going to stand here.” Bucky nodded and let go of Brock. In the time it took Brock to fold up his cot and bring it across the hall, the dark-haired soldier had crawled into bed and pressed his back up against the wall. Brock pushed the dresser against the far side of the room and set his cot up next to Bucky's. “This good for you?”

Bucky nodded. He pulled the blankets up until he was almost cocooned in them, his left hand clenching them under his chin. He thrust his right hand out to Brock and the ex-agent reluctantly took it in his own. Although they both knew the physical contact would help ground Bucky, neither were particularly enthusiastic about it. “Talk,” Bucky requested. “Something about me.”

“Uh... You were always touch-starved coming out of the freezer, and sometimes after missions, too,” Brock remembered. “Once I joined your team you always ended up looking for me. I guess it was 'cause I was the only one not trying to get into your pants. But you scared the hell out of me a couple times, when I'd wake up to you standing over me or getting into bed while I was asleep. Got this lost look on your face whenever I asked you what you were doing, like you didn't know. People that showed you kindness, though, you latched onto them like a dog. During downtime you usually followed me around unless I told you to stay in one place. Around others I kind of shoved you off, but on solo missions we were pretty... tactile, I guess you'd call it. You were always kind of reserved but you liked physical contact. I'd brush against you getting something or lean against you on the couch and you loved it. Looks like you're still the same way. You gotta... gotta have your hands on something, probably cause it helps you somehow.”

Bucky hummed under his breath. Though he'd listened attentively to Brock's words, trying to fit them into the scattered memories he held, now he looked tired. Although his bond with Brock wasn't exactly deep, the sound of the man's voice had grounded him in reality. His eyes closed and Brock realized that for an assassin he looked almost childlike when he was asleep. Eventually Bucky's hand slipped from Brock's grasp and the ex-agent turned over to go to sleep himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea where I'm going with this any more. Things happen and I go along with it. Although I think I'm starting to get a handle on writing Brock. He really doesn't want to be stuck with Bucky but he knows he'd be on his own against literally everyone else in the world if he isn't with Bucky.
> 
>  
> 
> Bucky's mission in France was based on the Annecy shootings. On September 5, 2012, an assassin killed Saad al-Hilli, his wife Iqbal al-Hilli, his mother-in-law Suhaila al-Allaf, and cyclist Sylvain Mollier. Saad's seven-year-old daughter Zainab was seriously injured but her four-year-old sister Zeena was unharmed. The assassi, original target, and motive remain unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annecy_shootings


	8. Chapter 8

When Brock woke up in night Bucky was sound asleep, but by morning he was alone. He yawned and turned over in bed so he was laying on his back, rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyelids. If it weren't for the fact that he was in Bucky's room, he would have thought last night was some weird dream brought on by three-day-old pizza. Still yawning, he wandered out into the kitchen and found Bucky sitting on the counter next to an open box of Pop-Tarts.

 

“Morning,” Bucky said. His hair hung messily across his face and there were shadows on his skin but his eyes were bright. “Want one?”

 

“Yeah,” Brock said. He caught the tinfoil package thrown to him and leaned against the wall as he opened it. “Got any coffee made?”

 

Bucky shrugged. “I don't even know if there's a coffemaker here.”

 

  
“Let me explain you a thing,” Brock said, raising a finger in a lecturing attitude. “HYDRA was a bastard terrorist organization, but even they have to have coffee. I'm gonna look.” He tossed his remaining Pop-Tart on the counter and opened the door to the nearest cabinet, of which there were few.

 

“You're pretty harsh on them for being one of their agents.”

 

“ _Ex_ -agent,” Brock corrected as he searched the cabinets. “But yeah, I knew what I was getting into. I lost people and I wanted to kill the world. Shit happens.”

 

Bucky snorted as he crinkled a tinfoil wrapper in his hand. “Oh, come on. Neither one of us is going to deny that I'm messed up, and even I know that there's a difference between 'shit happens' and HYDRA.”

 

Brock found a coffemaker and set it down on the counter near one of the electrical outlets. “Nah, not really, not when you're young and angry,” he answered pensively. “There's no difference.” He shrugged and plugged in the coffemaker. “Hey, you want coffee?” he asked, deliberately lighthearted.

 

Bucky didn't miss the change but didn't mention it. “Yeah.”

 

“Do you even know what this stuff is?”

 

“Yes. Steve made some for me.”

 

“Thank God.” Brock dumped coffee grounds into a paper filter and put it into the machine. “So do you have any idea about what base you want to check out? We've got forks all across the map, and that's just in the States. Although we're not going to be hopping planes for international missions any time soon.”

 

Bucky shrugged and slipped down from the counter. He motioned for Brock to follow him and went to the maps they'd been marking with potential base locations. “There's this one in Michigan that looks like it's still active.” Laying his finger on their current location and dragging it across the map to the base's tine as he spoke, he added, “We could go through Canada and cut the travel time in half.”

 

“Leave the truck at the border?”

 

“Yeah. Steal another one once we're in Canada, use it as a distraction to get us across the border the second time. If getting the base sets the border patrol on edge we can go through Ohio and Pennsylvania if we have to, but we shouldn't run into any major trouble. Quick op unless we get caught.”

 

“Any idea about security?”

 

“Probably the same as the base I took out when I found you. If there's HYDRA officers there, security will be heavier, but still not a problem. We have the stockpile I took from the last base, with rifles, grenades, and plenty of extra ammunition. There's not much chance of us being outgunned unless the numbers are heavily against us. More importantly than a bunch of stolen bullets, we have me.”

 

“I thought you'd be hiding from being a weapon,” Brock said. “You sure you can handle combat?”

 

“I didn't fugue after the last mission. This one won't be different. Not much difference between stealing a rifle from HYDRA and stealing myself. We'll use both, because I can handle it.” He glanced at Brock as if daring the ex-agent to challenge him, and Rumlow rose to the occasion.

 

“Do you really think that or are you trying to convince yourself?”

 

“I _said_ I could handle it,” Bucky snarled, glaring. at Brock. In response the ex-agent shrugged and put his hands up in surrender.

 

“Fine.” Brock went back into the kitchen and got a cup from the cabinet. “So how do you want to run it? What kind of intel do we have?” He filled the cup with coffee, took a sip, and grimaced. “I forgot how horrible my coffee is.” He started looking through the pantry again.

 

“We know it's there,” Bucky explained, “and there's a sixty percent chance it has at least one HYDRA officer on-site. I only think that because it's the closest base to the last one I took out and one of the larger remaining ones. That's all we have to go on.”

 

“We'll scout it before going in, right?” Brock poured sugar into his cup directly from the bag, used a spoon to stir his drink around, and took a sip. “It's better but not by much,” he complained, looking down into the cup and swirling it as if that would help.

 

“Depends on what we find if we get there.” Bucky filled his own cup with the black liquid but didn't bother with sugar or cream. He drank the entire draft in a few seconds and set the cup on the counter. “If they're moving the base or something, there won't be much time to run recon. We might just have to go in without a plan and hope we can shoot our way out afterward.”

 

“Sounds great.”

 

“You don't have to come. I'll leave you tired up in the bedroom and you can hope someone finds you if I get killed on the mission.”

 

“Of course I'm coming,” Brock said. “But I don't think you'd have to worry about getting killed if HYDRA gets you. If it's one of the larger bases, shouldn't we call in the Avengers as backup?”

 

“I'm running this mission, Rumlow.” Bucky tone turned antagonistic and he pushed into Brock's personal space. “Don't like it, don't go.”

 

“I already said I was going.” Brock stood his ground even though he would have much rather preferred to back down. “I'm just wondering if you're thinking this through as far as taking on a big base goes.”

 

“I'll get together everything I can find on file if you go over the weapons.” Bucky turned away as he spoke, as if Rumlow's objections hadn't been voiced. “Field strip everything, put it back together again, and get a count on the ammunition and grenades. Make sure everything's in working condition and check for anything that would be a surprise on an op. We'll be gone at least two days so we need to clean this place before we go. Can't leave anything that would identify us but we can leave the extra supplies.”

 

“When do you want to be out by?” Brock asked.

 

“As soon as we can. If we don't have any trouble crossing the border we should be able to find the base by nightfall. Use the cover of dark to get in close without being seen. HYDRA doesn't use a lot of advanced tech on the ground – just ground forces on the lower entrances. The expensive stuff is used for air protection against rockets and satellites.”

 

“Did you get any tac gear from the base?”

 

Bucky shook his head. “I don't like the stuff HYDRA issues and I wasn't planning on having you along. You'll be fine.”

 

“Yeah, I hope so. I'll get to work on the cache. Have fun with the computers. Call me for lunch.” Brock grabbed his laptop on his way to the truck. When he got up there he pulled the tarp back from the bed of the truck and set his laptop down on the tailgate. The crates were already open, since Bucky had checked them before loading them. Brock sat on the tailgate next to his computer, started playing a Lynyrd Skynyrd song on YouTube, and pulled a rifle into his lap. Field ops had always been his area of expertise much more than researching a target. Whether Bucky remembered that or not, Brock was grateful for the way the labour had fallen.

 

It was just past lunchtime by the time Brock was finished. Since he was breaking each weapon down and reassembling them, his job was time-consuming more than labour intensive. He made himself lunch, made something for Bucky, and retreated to the truck to avoid a now-grumpy assassin. Brock hadn't bothered inquiring as to what had upset him. An hour later Bucky came up to the barn, threw his bag into the backseat, and informed Brock he was driving away in ten minutes. Eight minutes later they were on the road, Bucky playing with the radio as he drove.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everybody in the world has needed coffee to function at some point in their life. Even if they can't really make coffee, they still need it. Seriously, though, Brock relies on coffee much more than he would admit. If he can spike it with some kind of hard liquor, that's just a bonus.
> 
> Well, at least Bucky has a plan. Kind of. Although we all know Bucky doesn't care much whether he has a plan or not, it's always to be able to say that yes, you knew what you were doing. He should know better than to mess with the radio while driving, though. You're ninety-five, Bucky, act responsibly.
> 
> Next chapter we get to see Bucky and Brock working together in the field. Dealing with this Canadian base is probably going to take up the rest of this fic, or at least most of the rest. I'm going to make my Google history even weirder by researching border security and car schematics and all this potentially illegal stuff I'll need to know. But hey, if you ever need to know how to illegally get into America via the American-Canadian border, I've got all the info on hand.


	9. Chapter 9

Bucky stopped in front of a rest stop an hour later. “Get something to eat,” he told Brock, handing him twenty dollars. “I'm going to park and do a last check of our supplies.”

“Anything you want in particular?” Brock asked.

“Out.”

“Fine.” Rumlow slammed the door behind him and walked into the building, glancing back at Bucky as he went. They were running a risk, doing an op like this on their own, but it felt good to be back in the field. He ordered four burgers and two root beers at the fast food place inside and wandered around the crowded parking lot until he found the truck.

Bucky toggled the doors' lock to let Brock in. He took the food without comment but didn't bother asking for the change. “Soon as we're done here, we move out. This is the last rest stop before the border, so it's the closest we're getting on the road without risking some cop running the plates on this if he finds it alongside the road. We'll leave the truck here and go on foot cross-country. It's almost dusk so we don't have to wait long until it's dark enough to go. No backup unless we call the Avengers, so I don't want to risk crossing the border after hours and getting in a race with the authorities. Putting up red flags before we even get to HYDRA will jeopardize the mission. Any questions?”

“Yeah. Why aren't you calling in the Avengers to deal with this stuff? They could help, especially with the collateral damage.”

“Anyone in that base that shoots at me is actively serving HYDRA and deserves to die. Property destruction is not a concern. We need this to be a quick in-and-out mission without the messiness of a highly profiled team potentially causing an international incident. If we're wrong, we disappear into the bush and come back here. If the Avengers are wrong they have to explain what they were doing over here. You know you send in pawns before the army. That's what we're doing.”

“You do know that 'pawns' isn't a very comforting term, right?” Rumlow asked.

“You do know that I want you to shut up, right?” Bucky parried.

“Heh. Forgot how sarcastic you are.”

“You knew that?” Bucky asked, his attention fixating on Brock.

“Every time your programming started to fade, you started getting sarcastic. It was one of the warning lights to HYDRA that you needed to be wiped.”

“What were some of the other ones?”

“Usually they dealt with you before you developed any other signs. Once, though, you asked if we could go to the beach during some downtime. And once you were talking in your sleep, asking for a girl named Rebecca. Sounded like a sister.”

Bucky interrupted him. “Used to have a younger sister named Rebecca. At least I think I did. HYDRA planted fake memories. I don't know which ones are real and which ones aren't. Anything else you remember me doing?”

“Nothing else but missions. Since I was only on your team for the last ten years, there's a lot I don't know. HYDRA kept mission reports but they didn't save much on the personal stuff. Mentioned days you were resistant, that you tried to strangle a tech or protested them hitting you or something, but never said anything about your personality. Probably wanted to pretend you didn't have one.”

“Sometimes I don't think they were pretending.”

Brock snorted. “You were making obscene noises over Pop-Tarts, sassing me over your ability to drive, and blaring Elvis through the safehouse. I'm pretty sure you have a personality. What else would you call it?”

Bucky didn't answer. He drummed his metal fingers against the steering wheel and glanced restlessly around the parking lot. It was strange to be learning about himself from someone who'd been associated with those responsible for him forgetting in the first place. Strange and unsettling, and he didn't like it. “We're moving,” he informed Brock, opening the door and slipping out of the truck. Once they'd both gotten their bags from the backseat, Bucky cracked open the window separating the backseat from the bed and locked the doors.

Brock followed Bucky off the pavement, keeping an eye on the dissipating crowd of tourists around the rest stop. Except for the gated entrances to Canada, there were no fences and only patrolling guards. They had no trouble crossing the border and getting onto the network of Canadian back roads. Although it irritated both of them that Bucky had to slow down so Brock could keep up with him, they had no other problems. In the first small town they came to, they found an unlocked car for Bucky to hotwire. As the super-soldier got the car running, Brock smashed the taillights so they wouldn't betray their position if they had to brake. He insisted he be allowed to drive and Bucky took shotgun.

Forty minutes later Brock switched off the headlights and put the car in park. They were half a mile from the border, and Bucky shone a flashlight on the map to show their options. It was unlikely that they would run into any patrols so they decided to stay on the road until they got to the area where the HYDRA base supposedly was. Bucky took a grenade from his pack as Brock turned the lights back on. “If someone chases us we grenade the road,” he told Brock. “Park the car across the highway and take to the bush.”

“Sounds like fun,” Brock agreed, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Are you mentioning this because of the headlights behind us?”

Bucky looked in the side mirror, tilting his head to get a better angle on the two white dots. “Not cops,” he decided.

“You can't see anything but the headlights,” Brock protested. “How can you tell?”

“The light's dim and the driver's swerving slightly. Cop car headlights are always bright white because they clean the headlight covers as part of standard maintenance. And, driving patterns indicate the driver is intoxicated. No ice on the road and he'd swerve more sharply if there was something in the way.”

“I see headlights, you see a drunk civilian.” Brock chuckled in disbelief. “No wonder you were so damn good. Mind like that, you should go to college or something.”

“Yeah, what college wouldn't want a living weapon coming to class?”

“There's online classes. I'm pretty sure you could get a hell of a science class from Stark and Banner, though. Probably have a dozen degrees between them.”

“Border's in a quarter mile,” Bucky replied.

“How do you figure that one out?”

“I read the sign.”

“Right.” Brock slowed to take a curve in the road. The pavement laid in a straight line to the border gate. “We'll have to ram it,” he mentioned. Bucky only shrugged. Brock shifted into the car's highest gear and stepped on the gas. The car's tires shrieked against the road and the vehicle fishtailed slightly. Brock swerved into the lane that would have usually held oncoming traffic, crashing through the gate that normally let travellers into the country. He kept up his speed until the road curved, then shifted down into second gear.

Bucky was unfazed by Brock's driving. He spread the map out across his lap and traced the paper with his finger as he spoke, even though Brock wasn't watching him. “Right now we're on 403, which turns into 401 in a couple miles. That turns into 402 and goes straight to Point Edward, where the shores of the American/Canadian sides of the Riu Saint Clair are closest. HYDRA base is right on the other side of the border, under Lake Huron. Port Huron is seven miles offshore Fort Gratiot Township along the coast. If our intel was right, the base is accessed by a sealed ground entrance a few hundred feet from the shoreline. The international bridge has no turnoffs and goes straight to customs, so we'll be parking in the lot between the customs building and the bridge entrance. Since it will still be dark, if we keep the car between us and the gate, nobody should notice us.”

“We'll still need to move fast.”

“Once we start moving in on the base, our pace will be irrelevant. Since it's an international checkpoint there's going to be lots of security on both sides of the border. Canadians probably won't respond fast enough but we'll have Americans on us. We might have to go into the water.”

“And you're sure we shouldn't call the Avengers, not even on standby? I know you don't want to bring them into this, with us being expendable pawns and everything, but I don't want to get arrested. You wouldn't either. Both of us would get the death sentence, your friendship with Captain America not withstanding.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's still working on the communication thing. It might take a while. Whether his Sherlock moment over the car following them is correct or not, I don't know, but it was fun to write. He's definitely going to be facing an interesting situation with this next attack - while he handled the last mission well enough, he didn't have Rumlow working with him in the field like he did as the Winter Soldier. And of course Bucky would rather push himself and pay the price later rather than take things slowly. Does he even know what it means to take things slow? My guess would be no. Still, he's pretty good at long-distance recon and planning things, which is probably going to be the only thing carrying them through this mission.
> 
> Brock still has the right idea, wanting to call in the Avengers. He had a little too much fun smashing the customs gate, though. When they're crashing the HYDRA base he should be just a little more respectful but he probably won't be. As he said in the last chapter, 'shit happens'.
> 
> Also, the furthest north I've been is Pennsylvania. Google and Google Maps are responsible for all geographical info you read, so if you know better... I don't. Help me out if you can, I would really appreciate it. Yay Canadians though. I've heard they're really cool people and stuff. Eh?


	10. Chapter 10

Bucky tapped his flesh knuckles against the window as he thought. “I still don't like it, but it's logical. Keep quiet while I'm on the phone.”

 

“You sound like my goddamn mother.”

 

“If you didn't act like a child I wouldn't have to.”

 

“Good one.”

 

Bucky dialed Steve's number, his lips slipping into a pout. He hated having to call people for help. If any parts of his HYDRA programming had come close to his natural habits, not asking for assistance was one of them. “Hey. A friend and I are taking a look at a HYDRA base just west of the Canadian/Michigan border. We could use some backup if things go bad, whether we're facing off with HYDRA or the border cops. I know it was a dick move taking off from the Tower and not calling except that one time, but if I need help you're about the only one I'd trust.” Brock made an offended noise and Bucky glared at him. “So whatcha say, Stevie?” A pause.

 

“Well?” Brock asked.

 

Bucky shushed him, waiting for an answer from Steve. He got it and smiled. “Okay. We're headed for the Bluewater Bridge crossing of the Riu Saint Clair. The bridge leads right to American customs, but there's a parking lot before you get to the gates. Plan is to park there and go to the base, which is a hundred yards or so from the shore. As soon as we engage, the American border police are going to be on us, so we need someone to get us out of the area without being arrested. Yeah, I got a partner. Uh... Yeah, you might know him.”

 

Brock barked in laughter. “Jesus, I'm screwed.”

 

“Shut _up_ ,” Bucky hissed at him. “It's nothing, Steve. Listen, we're coming up on the bridge. Gotta go.” He cut the call and glared at Brock.

 

“Oh, we're not coming up on the bridge,” Brock said innocently. “Wanna call him back?”

 

“I will disembowel you in your sleep.”

 

“If I sleep through someone trying to gut me, I deserve it. Sounds like he's coming. Did he say if he's bringing anyone else?”

 

“He didn't say. I'm guessing he'd just bring Natalia and Clint. Steve's smart enough to only bring people I know if he isn't sure how well I react to combat. You've met Natalia but I don't think you know Clint.”

 

Brock hummed under his breath, trying to match names with faces. “Natalia. Are you talking about that redhead Russian, Romanoff?”

 

“Yeah. She was Natalia when I knew her.”

 

“How many decades ago was that?”

 

“About fifteen, maybe twenty years ago. She was fourteen and already knew a way to kill a man for each year she'd been alive. Reminded me of myself.” Bucky shrugged and hunched into himself, crossing his arms across his chest. “Neither one of us were supposed to be there.”

 

“Well, at least you both got out. That's gotta count for something.”

 

Bucky shook his head, rolling it across the back of his seat. “You don't get out of this life, Brock. Just pretend you've found someone better worth fighting for. As soon as you kill somebody, you're in it for life. No escape.”

 

“Steve would protect you if you wanted to get out. If you told him you never wanted to go into combat again, he'd listen.”

 

“What if I want to fight?”

 

“There's a difference between wanting to fight and wanting to murder people. Back in World War II you were fighting as a soldier. As the Winter Soldier you murdered people. Soldiers aren't murderers. You just gotta choose which one you want to be. Maybe when you figure that out it'll be part of that existential crisis you wanted to deal with before going back to your boy Steve.”

 

Bucky snorted. “He's a little old to be a boy. Never really was much of a kid, even when he was young. At least, not if I'm remembering him the right way.”

 

“You know what I mean.” A sign flashed past advertising the distance to the international border. “I'd say we have at least another two and a half hours of driving time. Feel free to take a nap.”

 

“Did you ever sleep right before combat?

 

“Nah. But if you stay awake I'm not talking to you.”

 

“I'll believe that when I hear the silence.”

 

Brock chuckled. “Put the radio on something and turn it up.”

 

“You choose. I don't care.”

 

“Fine. Let me know if anything triggers you. I don't wanna die on some godforsaken back road in Canada.” Brock tuned the radio into a hard rock station and cranked up the volume.

 

“Are you sure that's actually music?” Bucky asked. “Sounds like dying cats.” When Brock huffed and moved to change the station, Bucky slapped his hand down. “Leave it. It's fine.”

 

“Watch it with the metal,” Brock groused, putting his hand back on the wheel. Since they were on the highway, he let the car test the speed limits but always slowed down whenever either of them noticed a police car. He stopped at a gas station when the tank showed it was only a quarter full. Bucky pumped the gas as Brock got food inside. Brock's idea of food consisted of half a dozen assorted snack items, a couple sandwiches, and a six-pack of energy drinks.

 

“You know,” Bucky said a few miles down the road, “I'm pretty sure my healing factor is the only thing keeping me alive on your 'diet'.” He examined the energy drink can in his hand and raised an eyebrow. “ _Venom Energy: Mojave Rattler_? Stuff sounds more like a poison than a drink.”

 

“If your healing factor is keeping you alive, then what's your explanation for me?”

 

“I'm pretty sure with you it's equal parts stubbornness, a refusal to die, and stupidity.”

 

Brock chuckled, not minding Bucky's sense of humour in the least. “You really like to make friends with people before going into combat with them, don't you?

 

“Yeah, you know me. World's most feared super-assassin but actually a really nice guy. Easy to get along with, stunning personality, great looks. I should put an ad in the paper.”

 

Brock diverted his attention from the road to Bucky. “Wait... Is that the first can you've had?” Bucky glanced at two cans that had rolled against the windshield, down to the one in his hand, and glanced at Brock before shrugging. “Oh my god, you're on a caffeine high. Your system hasn't had time to handle it yet. Jesus kill me.”

 

“Thought you didn't believe in Jesus,” Bucky mumbled, glaring suspiciously at Brock.

 

“Whether I believe in him or not, the only other deity that comes to mind is Buddha and it would sound a little weird to be asking him to cut me off. He's the peace-and-love Hindu god or something, he's not gonna deal with some freaky American merc. Besides, you're on a caffeine high. Nothing is going to make sense to you right now.”

 

“Doesn't have to make sense for you to do it.”

 

“Are we talking plans or people?” Brock asked dryly. His humour seemed to hit an unexpected chord in his passenger, and for a moment he thought Bucky would choke from laughing so hard. “I'm not that funny. You know that, right?”

 

Bucky's laughter quieted into a few quiet chuckles. “God, if this is what being drunk feels like I'm getting plastered when we go back to the base.” He stared out the window and giggled to himself before sighing and falling silent, a smile playing around his lips.

 

“If you can, please, please go to sleep.”

 

“You're not my mother.”

 

“Fine. Stay up.”

 

“I will,” Bucky decided, almost childishly pouting. He folded his arms across his chest, turned his back to Brock as much as he could, and stared out the window. Eventually his shoulders slumped as he fell asleep, dozing lightly. Brock let him sleep, steering around potholes in the road and keeping the car at a slow enough mileage that there wasn't much road noise. From experience with drunk HYDRA members, he knew the best thing would be to let Bucky sleep it off as much as he could.

 

Bucky stirred in his sleep about an hour and a half later. It was nearly ten at night now, and there were few cars on the highway. He turned over and yawned, dragging a hand across his eyes. When he opened them one of the first things he noticed were the trio of energy drink cans clinking softly against each other on the dashboard. “Oh my god,” he mumbled, a look of amusement and horror crossing his face. “Did I really do what I'm remembering doing?”

 

Brock burst out laughing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brock is that annoying friend that has you in a lowkey state of "I will murder you" most of the time. And with no respect for people on the phone. Seriously, Brock.
> 
> Bucky is just as bad when it comes to talking about his past and taking reassurances. Just listen every once and a while, Buck, and you might be surprised. Life sucks but you gotta learn from it rather than complaining, then pushing it away. While doing that is a coping mechanism at times, refusing to face something means you end up 'volcanoeing' eventually and that's even worse.
> 
> I realize that Brock's insensitivity to religion might be a touchy subject for some people. Brock's an asshole, he doesn't care. While I respect all religions and the people who subscribe to them, Brock is certainly not that considerate. Sometimes when you're really comfortable with what you're writing, the dialogue creates itself, and this was one of those cases. Of course, some people won't like it, but I think it's in character and I'll be keeping it in. Apologies for any feathers I ruffle.
> 
> The chapter ending was inspired by the fact that my college suitemate (who does not handle caffeine well) drank three energy drinks in a day because she had to write a five-page paper overnight due to procrastination. I'm pretty sure I can blackmail her into anything now. Brock can only wish he'd had a video camera on him. YouTube and Tumblr would have been broken for days.


	11. Chapter 11

During the rest of the drive to the bridge, Bucky knew exactly what Brock was thinking of whenever the other man made a laughing sound. If the story ever got to the Tower, Bucky knew for a fact that he would never be allowed to forget about it. When they were actually driving over the international border, Bucky called Steve again. “Hey, we're crossing the border. ETA? No, Steve, we're not waiting for you to go in. Talk to you later.” Cutting the call, Bucky toggled the volume to silent and put the phone in his pocket.

“What's his ETA?” Brock asked.

“Twenty minutes.”

“Are we really not waiting for them to come in or was that just to freak him out?”

“Twenty minutes gives us fifteen minutes to be in and out. Can you keep up with an old man?”

“Sure. I'll push you around in a wheelchair.”

“You could try.” Bucky withdrew a pistol from his bag, checked the clip, and leaned sideways so he could hide it behind the band of his jeans.

Brock turned off the road and into the parking lot. There were a few cars lined up at the customs gate and nobody seemed to notice that they'd turned off. “You know, I kind of want to take a couple pictures. Play the tourist, make some memories.”

“I kind of want to shoot you in the face.”

“The pictures wouldn't be nearly as painful.”

“Just park the goddamn car.”

“Harsh,” Brock grumbled, turning the car so they were facing the Saint Clair River. “Do you want to ram the fence or cut through it?”

“Ram it.”

“You got it.” Brock shifted all the way up into the highest gear and put his foot down. The security guards started yelling at them but neither paid any attention. Bucky tossed a grenade behind them, and the concussion of the explosion coincided neatly with their crash through the fence. The car shot off the pavement, wheels spinning madly in the air, and slammed down hard onto the road nearly fifteen feet below. Brock had to cut his seatbelt and air bag to get out. “I – am fucking – pissed – that you convinced me to do that.”

“Really? I thought it was fun.” Bucky pulled his pack from the wreck of the car and walked out into the road. A truck squealed to a halt when he stood in front of it. Pulling the pistol from his belt, Bucky shot into the air then levelled the pistol at the driver. The man abandoned his vehicle and Bucky got in.

Brock was right behind him. “Now what?”

“HYDRA probably knows we're coming now.” Bucky spoke absentmindedly, scanning the area for the quickest route to the riverside. “So we go in shooting from the start. Get your rifles ready. Take the wheel if I let go.”

Brock yanked open the zipper of his weapons bag and took out a rifle. He fitted an extra clip into the magazine as Bucky sped down the road, laying on the horn to warn the other drivers to get out of his way. Brock used the stock of the rifle to smash his window out and clear the glass shards from the frame. “What's our plan on the ground?”

“Stay together unless we're under fire. Then we split up. Kill any HYDRA member on sight. Hold fire on civilians. Only shoot to wound non-HYDRA combatants. Understand?”

“Got it.” Brock leaned his body out of the window, setting his rifle across the ceiling of the van. He stabbed one of his knives through the metal top and wrapped the fingers of his left hand around it as Bucky swerved around a car. “Bucky! Watch the driving.”

“When we're in the field, call me Winter. That's my combat name.”

“I thought you didn't want anything to do with HYDRA any more except to destroy it.”

“Shut up and shoot.”

Brock rested the barrel across the forearm of the hand gripping the knife and started squeezing the trigger. As they'd suspected, HYDRA had been alerted, and there were two dozen armed guards outside. He took out four before Bucky swerved the car in a one-eighty turn to avoid going into the river. When his side of the vehicle came into the line of fire, he ducked and let Bucky shoot. On the next swerve back, Bucky tossed a grenade with his metal arm and drove after it, directly at the base entry. The grenade and the man coming after it broke the troops' resolve, and one of them ordered the door to open. Despite their efforts, the grenade took most of them out, but Bucky appreciated that they had opened the door for him.

The tunnel was wide and short, barely big enough to let the SUV through. Brock rested the barrel of his rifle against the empty window frame and shot whenever he saw anyone that belonged to HYDRA. “When exactly do you plan to stop driving?” he yelled over his shoulder to Bucky.

Bucky spoke calmly as he swerved to the left in an attempt to run over a few HYDRA soldiers. They barely escaped and he went back to the center of the road. “When we get to where the car can't go any farther or the center of the base, whichever is furthest. When I stop the car we each need to secure the exits until there's only two open ones. Then we each take a doorway and defend it.”

Brock didn't know what set the center of this base apart from any other part of it, especially during a vehicular chase, but a few minutes later Bucky seemed to find his spot. He jerked the wheel to the side and blocked the tunnel with the car. “Find a position,” Bucky ordered.

After grabbing his pack, Brock got out of the car, snugging the stock of his rifle against his shoulder as he scoped the room. “Looks empty. I'm going to block those two doors and circle back here.”

“I'm shooting out the lights in the tunnel,” Bucky informed him. A few moments later, the staccato explosion of handgun fire and the tinkling of glass shards on concrete told Brock the assassin's job was done. By the time Brock had turned the lock on the doors and barricaded them with crates, Bucky had started setting up a makeshift blockade in the center of the room. Most of the tables were covered in expensive equipment. Bucky told Brock not to touch any of the electronics and pulled his flash drive from his pocket as he approached one of the computers. While the hard drive was downloading onto his device, he helped Brock build up their barricade so it was mostly solid. Once they were done he worked on shooting out the lights, leaving the room only dimly illuminated by the light from the computer screens.

“Someone's coming,” Brock said. Flashlights blinded him and he ducked behind the barricade, blinking as white spots danced across his vision. Bucky slipped black glasses on, picked up a rifle, and started shooting. With some bullets there were screams of pain, with each one a flashlight fell to the floor.

“They're retreating,” Bucky informed him. “Avengers ETA in seven minutes.” He stood up and looked at the computer display. “Four minutes left until the hard drive finishes downloading. Getting the information on it is crucial to our mission. It must happen. Brock, you're in charge of holding this position.” And with that he jumped the barricade and walked down the hallway. Seconds from the moment he turned the corner, the screaming started. Brock rested the barrel of his rifle across the top of the barricade and waited.

Bucky came back several minutes later with a dozen rifles clattering together, their straps held in his metal hand. Dark red liquid was smeared across his eyes and forehead like the black grease that HYDRA had once used, and he wore a black muzzle with metal bars across his teeth. “Check that door and see what's beyond it. We're moving as soon as the download finishes.” Once the progress bar of the download disappeared from the screen, Bucky yanked the drive out and returned it to his pocket. He led the way down the hallway.

“What's with the new look?” Brock asked, uncertainty tinging his voice.

“They were my nightmare for years. It's time to return the favour.” Bucky shrugged out of his pack, opened it, and started stashing weapons on his body. A knife went into each boot, a throwing knife holster around his left thigh, and he wanted the weight of a pistol at each hip. “Let's go. We move fast.” He zipped up his pack, put it back on, and started walking. When they came to a crossroads, he waved Brock to the right, toward the border, and moved left. In moments they were each caught up in a firefight. They were pushed back toward each other, but rather than retreating to their old barricade, Bucky moved further into the base.

“Am I the only one regretting this yet?” Brock checked the number of rounds in his rifle, holding the stock awkwardly between his knees, and hissed angrily. “I'm almost out of rounds and lost my pack. What have you got?”

Bucky snorted softly, his finger slipping past the trigger guard and wrapping softly against the trigger. When he spoke his voice was best described as a languid drawl, which seemed completely out of place to Brock. “And how did you lose a big black bag full of weaponry?” He leaned around the corner and shot twice. One of the HYDRA guards fell to the floor.

“I got shot in the shoulder and the bullet took out the shoulder strap. Kept putting me off balance and then I got into hand-to-hand combat.”

“What's the plan?”

“Punch everybody.”

“That's not a plan.”

“It is.”

“Maybe twelve percent of a plan.”

HYDRA agents started yelling and directing their fire away from Brock and Bucky. The Winter Soldier smiled. Behind the bars of his muzzle, it turned into a grimace. “There's the plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brock is having way too much fun teasing Bucky. Well, Bucky can match him snark for snark, so... Everyone wins. I'm having a lot of fun writing him, mostly because Bucky is 5000% done but also very entertained by it at the same time. So far nobody's gotten shot or stabbed, so it's all good.
> 
> Also, I certainly do not recommend Bucky's idea of mimicking his Winter Soldier outfit just to mess with soon-to-be-dead HYDRA people. Seriously, guys, it's not a good idea. I'm not going to tell that to the internationally feared assassin, but I'll tell you guys.
> 
> Also, did anyone spot the Young Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy references? Brownies for those who do.


	12. Chapter 12

“Your plan was to shoot at things until Steve showed up?” Brock demanded. “That's an awful plan.”

Bucky didn't answer. He shrugged out of his pack, dropped his rifle on top, and moved toward the fight with a knife in each hand. Cursing fluently under his breath, Brock followed him with a pistol. Once they got closer to combat Bucky lurched into a run, giving Brock no chance to track his progress. With the darkness and the gunsmoke, it was hard to see anything but a general turmoil of bodies. There was a burst of machine gun fire from the new arrivals and Brock flinched instinctively.

“Cap, you got friendlies on the ground!” he yelled. His voice attracted the attention of several HYDRA agents. Brock shot them and moved deeper into the battle, striking with his bare hands or the butt of his pistol when his bullets ran out. Eventually he caught up to Bucky, who moved wilder and faster once he saw Brock was keeping an eye on his back. They worked well together, Brock knowing how Bucky fought in close quarters and Bucky seeming to know almost by instinct how they would be rushed.

As soon as the fighting started to die down, Bucky rushed across the intersection, killing three men as he did. Brock followed him, snapping the neck of a man who was aiming at Bucky's back and taking his weapon. “Winter, you got eyes on a target?” he asked, breathing heavily from the fight.

“No target. Officer execution and prisoner release are the parameters of this phase of the mission. Steve will clean up what we left back there and HYDRA will be interested enough in him to keep throwing troops his way. The executive bunker will be through here. If we get through we kill whoever is inside except one.”

There were plenty of ground troops between them and the bunker. It took half an hour to get to the heavy steel doors, but once they reached that spot, the doors opened to the touch. Brock and Bucky found it no task to take out the six remaining guards, and with their deaths the people inside the executive bunker had no men or guns to defend themselves with. Some pled for their lives. All but one died; once Bucky obtained the exact location of the prison block he shot the last survivor as well.

Getting to the prison block was easy. There were only a few guards, and the two attackers had plenty of weapons. Most of the cells were made of floor-to-ceiling panels of metal, bearing only an identifying number and a lock. Bucky went to the computer and opened the cell doors with a few clicks of the mouse. Each of the locks disengaged. Some of the doors creaked open and some remained closed.

“I'll take the left,” Bucky said. “Cover me as you take the right.” One by one, he opened each cell door. Most of them were empty. A few held adults, metal dog tags gleaming against their dirty skin. The back cells each held half a dozen children. Bucky made an uncouth squawking noise that sounded vaguely like a chicken and jumped back. In an instant Brock was at his side, rifle pointed at the cell door opening. “Stand down,” Bucky told him, pushing the barrel of Brock's gun away from the cell.

Brock glanced inside. “Kids? You were afraid of kids?”

“I don't like kids,” Bucky mumbled. “They're strange.”

“These ones also happen to be HYDRA prisoners. Which really makes me wonder why they're here.” Brock cradled his rifle in his arm, making sure the barrel was pointed at the floor, and approached the cell. “I'm not going to hurt you,” he reassured them. As he neared the door of the cell itself he crouched down. “Can any of you talk?”

“We're not allowed to speak to anyone,”a young girl said. Unlike the other children, who were staring at the two men fearfully, she kept her face toward the floor.

“Do you know who imprisoned you?”

“HYDRA,” piped up one of the younger boys in the back. All the others shushed him.

“We got rid of the bad HYDRA people here,” Brock promised them. “In fact, we came here to get you and the other prisoners out. Neither one of us are going to hurt you. There are friends of ours here with a plane to take you to safety.”

“The stranger tells the truth and yet he lies,” said another boy. “Most of his words are true, but there is a dark grey wisp on his words about friends.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Brock asked, startled. “Well, they're not my friends. They're friends of my field partner, here.” He gestured back toward Bucky. “And they do have a plane that will get out out of here.”

“Now he tells the whole truth,” the boy said. “White words!” A murmur ran through the little group, and their expressions held curiosity and hope more than fear.

“I don't know how much time we have,” Brock said. “We need to leave before someone manages to call in reinforcements. Will you come with us?”

“Who is the other man?” a child asked.

“He's the one responsible for taking out this base, probably. We worked together. You can trust both of us. Captain America is here because we called him in. The Avengers are trustworthy, right?”

One of the girls who had been sitting on the bed slipped to the floor and walked to the front of the cell. The others parted to let her through. She examined Brock's face, then Bucky's. “I say we go with them.”

“Becka, are you sure?” a boy asked.

“Of course,” she answered. “What's your name?” she asked Brock.

“Brock. Former HYDRA, former HYDRA prisoner. This is my field partner Winter, and he used to be a HYDRA prisoner too. He doesn't talk much but his reason for coming here was to take out this base.”

“I'm Rebecca LeBeau. Let's go, Rumlow. We want out of here.”

“Okay, then,” Brock said. “Winter, you want to take point and make sure nothing's between us and where we left Cap?” Bucky gave a terse nod and left. “Are any of you injured?”

“None of us are hurt too badly,” Rebecca said. “But they've been taking a lot of Henry's blood. I don't know if he can walk.”

“I'll carry him, then.” Brock leaned his rifle against the door of the cell and stepped inside. The kids scattered to let him in, pointing the way to where a young boy lay in the corner. Brock picked him up and led the others out of the cell, moving slowly so they could all keep up with him. One of the last boys to leave the cell had a pair of russet-coloured wings laying against his back. Brock couldn't help staring.

“Whatcha looking at, Brock?” Rebecca demanded, a definite Louisiana accent in her voice. “Ain't ya never seen a kid with wings before?”

“No, actually. Did he get them from HYDRA?”

“No way!” the winged boy said, indignant. “They showed up a couple months ago. We're all mutants. HYDRA kidnapped us for testing and ransom.”

“I'm going to fucking kill them,” Brock muttered. Out loud, he added, “Come on. You're getting out of here.” Several of the other kids, he now noticed, had something about them that made them seem not quite human. One girl seemed to almost shimmer, and another had a tinge of purple on his skin. A boy turned to look back at him and Brock noticed his ears were pointed and ridged.

Bucky reappeared at the end of the hallway. He'd rubbed the blood from his face and gotten rid of the muzzle, and Brock felt a sense of relief. Even though they had been working together, Bucky's appearance had scared the hell out of him. It was a miracle the kids hadn't fled screaming.

“What about the other prisoners?” a girl asked. Her skin was made of gently mottled scales and her eyes had pupils like a reptile's.

“I can carry a kid,” Brock said, “but not half a dozen grown men. We'll send someone to get them. Local police are outside, I'd guess. Bucky and I kind of skipped going through customs at the border.”

“Bucky?” someone called.

“Down here,” Bucky answered. “We found some prisoners.”

Steve came around the corner and stopped in shock at the situation. “What did you do?”

“Hey, it wasn't us,” Brock protested. “They're mutant kids. It was HYDRA that kidnapped them.”

Steve recognized Brock and his eyes narrowed. “You. Get away from the kids, Rumlow.”

Bucky stepped between them. “He's with me. Under my protection. We get the same treatment. Remember I said I had a partner with me?”

“You're working with Rumlow?”

“I'll explain later if you guarantee him clemency as long as he works under me.”

“You would have to report to the Avengers and be accountable for whatever you do,” Steve warned.

“Fine. Let's get these kids out of here, Steve.” Bucky brushed past his friend. Two grown men and seven children followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky may or may not have actually had a plan until Steve showed up to cover them. Typical, right? I don't know if fear of children is actually a thing (probably is tbh) but I totally agree with him. Kids are kind of strange, especially the young ones.
> 
> I find it kind of funny that Steve's initial reaction is 'What did you do?' That's going to be the initial reaction a lot in the future, I'm sure. Especially if Clint and Bucky go back to making margaritas. At least Steve handled Rumlow being there fairly well, although he'll have a lot more to say on the subject later. And it's not like the rest of the team are going to be too happy about it either. What's the worst that can happen, right?
> 
> Just four more chapters left in this work! The next part of the series might take a little longer to post, but we'll see. Many thanks to everyone who's commented, left kudos, and bookmarked!


	13. Chapter 13

“Wait, I think we lost one.” Brock turned around, counting heads, and frowned. “Did we lose one?”

Rebecca turned around and scanned the group. “Where's Casey and Danny?”

“I'm Casey,” said the boy standing closest to Brock. Neither he or anyone else seemed to know where Danny was.

“Cap, take the kid,” Brock said. “I'll go find Danny.”

“Maybe I don't trust you to do that,” Cap threatened.

“Danny's coming,” Casey announced. “With another mutant. But they're small.”

“Small?” Cap repeated, puzzled.

An ant buzzed past them and landed on the floor nearby, unnoticed. Two tiny people climbed off and started growing. One of the girls noticed them when they were about knee-high and shrieked.

“Danny!” Casey said happily. The boy had the same dark hair and eyes that Casey did, but the girl was blond-haired and blue-eyed.

“Who's this?” she asked. “Oh, hi, Cap. I guess these guys are with you?”

“Cassie,” Cap replied. “Yes, they are. What are you doing here?”

“When a bunch of mutant kids got kidnapped I stole Dad's spare suit and came to see what happened.” Cassie blushed. “HYDRA caught me while I was sneaking around. Guess I should've been quieter. I sent an ant to Dad a couple minutes ago to let him know what happened.”

“Tell him to meet us at the Tower in New York. We'll be taking everyone there until we can get in touch with their parents.”

“Sure,” Cassie agreed. “Come on, guys, let's get out of here.” She helped the three men hem the kids into a group and walk them outside. The Quinjet was sitting on the grass. Natasha was arguing with a couple border police, Clint and Sam standing behind her.

“Get in the Quinjet, kids,” Cap said quietly. “Bucky, Brock, you go with them. We'll deal with the cops.”

“Do you need backup?” Bucky asked, softly, eyeing the cops distrustfully. He shrugged his pack higher on his shoulderblades.

“No, Bucky. But thanks.”

Brock waited for Bucky to join him before following Cassie and the other kids. There wasn't nearly enough seats for all of them but the Avengers were in a hurry to get back to the Tower before the border police had time to stop them. Cap send Natasha and Clint to the Quinjet and took over negotiations himself. Sam stayed with him. Natasha buckled into the pilot's seat and glanced at Bucky, who was already in the co-pilot's seat.. He looked out the window to avoid her gaze.

The intercom crackled briefly before Steve's voice came through. “Natasha, do you copy?”

“Yeah.”

“Lift off, now.” They could hear a few cops protesting but Natasha pushed the throttle forward and the Quinjet lifted off the ground.

“We have to go back for him,” Bucky ordered, already getting out of his seat.

“Sam has him,” Natasha said, not bothering to look. “This was the plan if the cops wouldn't let us leave. He's fine.” Bucky sat back down, rather unwillingly. “We'll land at the first opportunity and get them on board.”

“I'll tell Brock we'll be leaving soon,” Bucky said.

“You can't do that to Steve again.”

Bucky hesitated. “Again?”

“He wouldn't leave his bedroom for two days after you disappeared. We had no idea where you were or if you were even alive. You didn't hear this from me, but I'm pretty sure he was crying for most of those two days. Stay for him, Snowman. Please.”

“If he wants me to stay so badly he should ask me himself.”

“Bucky, you know Steve would never ask you to do anything he thought you didn't want to do. He won't ask you to stay because he's afraid that you'll say yes even though you don't want to. Just talk to him on the way back to the Tower. If you think he doesn't want you to stay then we'll drop you off wherever you want.”

Bucky sighed. “Fine.”

Brock came up from the body of the Quinjet to join them. “What's the plan, Winter?”

“You can go back to calling me Bucky. We're returning to the Tower with the Avengers. Our stay there will be indefinite.”

“Do you want to stop for the truck?”

“We'll get it later.”

“All right.” Brock went back to the hold with the rest of the kids.

“Who's your friend?” Natasha asked, her tone of voice indicating she knew exactly who he was.

“Brock Rumlow. Steve donated blood to keep him alive for interrogation. He escaped and went back to HYDRA, thinking they were his best bet. Once they found out he had Steve's blood they used him for experiments. I found him as a prisoner in the first base I took down. We're working together because right now we both want to take HYDRA out. After we've done that, I don't know what he plans to do.”

“You do know-”

“That he's a wanted international criminal? Ex-HYDRA? My old handler? I know who he is, Natalia. I know what he's done. As long as he works for me and not against me, I don't care. People change.”

Natasha bit her bottom lip, trying to think of a way to word what she wanted to say. “Just because you want to be a better man doesn't mean that Brock wants to change as well. When all this is over, he could go back to taking contracts from the highest bidder.”

Bucky looked over at her and waited until she met his gaze. “If it weren't for the Avengers, would we be any different from him?” he asked softly. “We used to be no better than him. How can you say he doesn't deserve a chance?”

Natasha looked away. “Okay then,” she agreed. “He gets one chance.”

A smile nearly rose to Bucky's lips. “Thank you. When are we stopping for Steve?”

“There's a big parking lot down there. I'm going to circle down and land in the corner. Hopefully we'll be in and out before anybody has time to come over and ask what's going on.” She started bringing the Quinjet in for a landing. Once they were on the ground she unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the hatch, and walked outside, grabbing a duffle bag on the way. In a few seconds Sam dropped Steve next to them and circled around the Quinjet for his own landing.

Bucky immediately focused on the blood soaking the front of Steve's uniform. “You're hurt?” His voice was steady but his eyes betrayed his worry.

“It's not mine, Buck,” Steve reassured him. Natasha threw Steve a change of clothes from the duffle bag and he took off his uniform shirt. “See? I'm fine.” He pulled the t-shirt over his head. “Thanks, Nat.”

“No problem,” she said, holding out a plastic bag for his bloody clothes. He dropped it in and took it from her.

“What are you going to do now, Bucky?” he asked.

“I was thinking Brock and I would come back to the Tower with you. At least until you figure out everything with the kids.”

Steve's head tilted to the side. “You didn't like kids that much before the war. Did that change?”

“No. But I don't think even you could handle this many kids on your own. And I know none of them should be left alone with Tony or Clint. They'll have half the Tower blown up before breakfast tomorrow.”

Steve grinned, the expression coming suddenly and fully to his face.” Yeah, you're probably right.” His grin shrank to a manageable smile. “I'm glad you're coming back with us, Bucky.”

Bucky's lips twitched and he tilted his head to study Steve. “I think I might be glad too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay Cassie! Fave Young Avenger. She knows Cap because I'm working with an Avengers team that has met Scott several times.
> 
> Let's hear it for Natasha, telling Bucky exactly what needs to happen. You go, girl. Because of course Steve would never confess to that, being too noble to make Bucky feel obligated to stay. Nat just tells it as it is, occasionally smacking people who don't get it. Bucky still has a hell of a lot of emotional baggage from HYDRA and all, so he's still figuring out if things could work between him and Steve, but this is a good start.
> 
> Also, random note, Danny and Casey are twins with the powers to sense nearby mutants and their size. I didn't explain that in the fic but I thought I should mention it so the lines made more sense.
> 
> 'Nother random note, in this fic the team keeps a spare set of clothes on the Quinjet. Because it's no fun riding home covered in bloody, dirty clothes. I speak from experience. When they dry on you, you often have to get them wet again so they come off comfortably, and I'm sure the Avengers would rather just change on the flight.
> 
> Two more chapters left! I'm going to be taking a week off before posting the next work. Thanks to everyone who reads, comments, and leaves kudos!


	14. Chapter 14

Natasha detoured to Bucky's truck. Steve offered to have Tony bring it back to the Tower for them but Bucky insisted on driving it back. Brock went with him, clearly not willing to be stuck in the Quinjet with the Avengers on his own. Once Bucky actually convinced Steve that he remembered how to get back to the Tower – “I was brainwashed, not brain-dead” – he and Brock took the highway back to New York. He played loud pop music and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel for the entire ride back.

Steve was waiting for them in the garage attached to Avengers tower. “Told you I wouldn't get lost,” Bucky teased. He tripped the handle of the driver's side door with his finger and kicked it open as he rummaged for his bag. “Do you want Brock and me bunking with you or on a different floor? We wouldn't want to disturb you with our... exercising.” He caught his bottom lip between his teeth and raised an eyebrow, giving Steve a suggestive glance.

The look that crossed Steve's face was nearly pure horror. “I – he can't – Brock, out!” He pointed toward the door as if that would help convey his position.

“Jesus, Cap, relax.” Bucky shot his hand out to ruffle Steve's hair up, a smirk crossing his lips. Steve squawked in protest. “Me and Brock are just field partners. He never put a hand on me like that.” Gesturing for Brock to follow him, he started toward the elevator, his pack slung over one shoulder.

“Does he always get jealous like that?” Brock asked as he followed.

Bucky snorted. “You have no idea.” Raising his voice and making it falsely sweet, he added, “He's adorable when he's angry, though.” The elevator dinged and its doors slid open. While they slid shut again, Bucky wiggled his fingers at Cap and put an arm across Brock's shoulder. “And he's still as easy to rile up as when we were kids. I forgot how much fun it was to do that. JARVIS, is the floor I was first living on still available?”

“It is, Sgt. Barnes,” the AI answered. “Shall I take you up to it?”

“Yeah, thanks.” When the elevator doors opened, Bucky led the way inside. “There's probably still a bed in here somewhere. I'm bunking up there.” He waved a hand vaguely toward his previous perch in the rafters as he dropped his bag on the floor. “JARVIS, is there food in the fridge?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Order some breakfast food from a cheap place downtown so it'll come by the end of the movie, will you? Doesn't matter what, but get a lot.”

“Of course.”

“I found a couple bedrooms,” Brock interrupted. “Sure you want to sleep out here?”

“Unless Clint steals my spot, yeah. Keep an eye out for him, by the way. He likes to drop out of the ceiling vents without warning. And if you see something out of the corner of your eye at night, it's Natasha. Oh, and if something's on fire it's probably from Tony. I've heard some interesting stories about him. JARVIS, who's here at the Tower?”

“Ms. Romanoff, Mr. Barton, Mr. Stark, Mr. Rogers, and Ms. Maximoff.”

“Anyone incoming?”

“Mr. Maximoff and Mr. Wilson should be arriving by nightfall.”

“Let everyone know that Brock is working with me and is not a target. I don't want someone shooting him in the middle of the night.” Bucky snagged a pack of Pop-Tarts from the pantry and went into the living room. “Hey Brock, you want to watch a movie?”

Brock yelled back from the bedroom rather than coming closer. “Like what?”

“I'll find something.” Bucky scrolled through the list of movies and found one that looked interesting. “JARVIS, would you recommend I watch this?”

“Not particularly, Sgt. Barnes,” JARVIS replied. “It is a highly violence-centric film.”

“Brock, I found a movie!”

“Give me a minute.” Brock walked in and stared at the movie Bucky had chosen. “The Expendables? Considering the mess you've still got cooking in your head, are you sure you should be watching something like that?”

Bucky snorted and hit play on the remote. “Are you my mother or my field partner?”

“That depends on if I get to set a bedtime.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Unfortunate. We could really give Steve something to worry about if we told him I set your bedtime.” Brock collapsed on the couch and pushed at Bucky in an unfruitful attempt to make him move over.

“Flirting with me, Rumlow? You of all people should know how dangerous that is.” Bucky seemed to be just teasing, but someone who knew his history as well as Brock did could clearly hear the cold undertone in his words.

“Nah, I'd have to be hella drunk to flirt with a guy. Especially one like you. Between the bad-boy look and the ability to kill me fifty different ways, you spell trouble with a capital T. Huge letters like a billboard on the highway.”

“If you watch the movie you might pick up a few things.”

Brock snickered. “Are we watching a murderfest or a porno?”

“What's a porno?”

“We'll talk about that later.”

Brock, at least, liked the movie. He wasn't sure what Bucky thought about it, but apart from flinching a few times the super-soldier hadn't given any signs of being affected by the subject matter. While it would usually be absurd to think that two professional assassins would have problems watching an R-rated movie, Brock wouldn't have thought Bucky would be in shape to watch something more intense than E.T. Still, it wasn't the first time Bucky had surprised people with his resiliency. “You wanna watch something else?” he asked as the credits rolled up the screen.

Bucky shook his head. “I'm going to go over what happened today and then I'm going to sleep. See you tomorrow.”

“So you're setting my bedtime now?” Brock asked with a smirk. When Bucky glared at him his lips twitched even further upward. “Well, sweet dreams, Bucky.”

The dark-haired soldier didn't return the goodbye. He picked up his bag from where he'd left it on the floor and set it on the couch next to him. It didn't take long for him to write a few pages on the laptop as a mission report. While he hated obeying HYDRA programming, he knew that it was best that he kept a record of everything that happened. Later, if he fugued again and forgot what had happened, he wouldn't be completely in the dark as to what he'd been up to. Although JARVIS kept tabs on everyone and everything inside the Tower, Bucky wasn't always where the AI could track him. During those times, the record-keeping was up to him. His fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard, clicks and taps coming from his left hand that would have irritated him if he weren't so focused on his work. Once he'd finished, he stole the blankets off the spare bed and went into the rafters.

 

Bucky woke up sweating, teeth clenched to keep his screams silent, because he was fucking Death but on the helicarrier he'd been afraid to die. When he'd been trapped beneath the metal beams and Steve was staggering to his side, he'd been writhing in a futile attempt to get himself free. Years of programming told him that if Steve didn't kill him, HYDRA would, and after seventy years of walking in the dark, metallic shadow of the Grim Reaper, Bucky had been afraid.

“I didn't want to die,” he whispered to himself. The realization made his brow knit and he bit his bottom lip as his eyes became unfocused. Something about this fact was significant, but Bucky couldn't quite fit the pieces together to figure out why. He should have killed himself off the second he knew Steve was going to spare him, the instant his intelligence told him Steve would drown in the river before outside help arrived. But he hadn't wanted to die. What would Steve say if he was here? He'd be talking mindlessly, trying to calm Bucky down, to bring him back to earth, but Bucky didn't know if he wanted to be grounded.

He had liked the adrenaline rush, the feral power, that came as a part of him being the Winter Soldier. When he was working a solo mission, the slick feel of a gun or knife in his hand, stalking a helpless victim, he'd been predatory. There had been no way for HYDRA to touch him without exposing themselves to half a city, which they were always unwilling to do. Afterward he had paid for his freedom with pain and reconditioning, but for fleeting moments he'd been almost happy, in a strange way. He remembered a time when he'd gone far too long without a wipe, when the sun seemed to be rising directly over their high-altitude safehouse. When he'd gone outside to see the sunrise and there had been an expansive feeling in his chest that had left him at the risk of bursting, and he'd felt joy for the first time in seventy years. Between the occasional moments of happiness and the times when he'd grinned at the prospect of washing his hands in blood, he'd been nearly content with his lot at times.

Then he remembered a man on a bridge, and the nearly physical evidence of a heart breaking at the Winter Soldier's words. But I knew him, but I knew him, but I knew him beat in his head like a drum, tattooed itself over and over again on his skin. Suddenly his eyes were blurry with tears he couldn't explain, he dropped to the floor, and JARVIS acknowledged his request to take him to Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky starts out sarcastic and ends up flipping out from a nightmare. Can't say I always take my time with things. And poor Steve, being teased like that. What are you doing, Buck? He's an old man.


	15. Chapter 15

When Bucky stepped into the room, Steve was making coffee. “Am I supposed to apologize for waking you up?” Bucky asked. He knew JARVIS had told Steve he was coming down, even though he hadn't heard the words. Once he'd scanned the room and decided there was nobody waiting to attack him, he walked around the bar separating the living room and kitchen. Rather than delivering the question challengingly or defensively, he felt genuinely curious about human behaviour. The kitchen was floored in tile, unlike the rest of the room which was carpeted, and he stood at the dividing line.

 

Steve needed a moment to think his answer over. “I guess most people would, yeah.” A yawn distorted his last few words and he blinked several times. “You don't have to apologize to me, though, Bucky. Whenever you need to talk, I'm just a floor above you.” One side of his mouth twisted up into a smile but he still looked tired. “Besides, some nights I'm not sleeping much anyway.”

 

“Stop treating me like I'm going to break, Steve.” Bucky had been standing at the edge of the kitchen but now he walked to the counter and hopped up, leaning back to put his weight on his hands. “I'm not as fragile as you think I am or HYDRA would have actually gotten around to murdering me sometime in the last seventy years. The fact that I'm here, alive and in the Tower, means I'm a damn sight stronger than everyone thinks I am. Getting out from HYDRA took a hell of a lot. I still get nightmares most nights. Haven't found much that keeps them quiet so I just deal with them, so-”

 

Steve interrupted him. “I'm sorry, Bucky. The train... I never should have... You trusted me and I let you down.”

 

Bucky's teeth clenched and he swallowed, but he pretended not to notice the way his body reacted to Steve's words. “You don't have anything to apologize for. If anyone owes me an apology, it's HYDRA.” He pursed his lips then sighed, rolling his head across his shoulders to look at Steve. “As long as you don't apologize, I won't. I get how you feel, Steve. You don't have to keep telling me every time we have a conversation. I understand the way you think.”

 

“You do?” Steve sounded and looked unbelievably hopeful.

 

“You want to blame yourself for everything while you save the world. Ever since you were a kid, you were like that.” Bucky's head tilted forward and he stared at his kneecaps as he thought over the memory he hadn't remembered having until he spoke it. “I-I don't remember it, or know it, but it's in my head. I know the way you are the way I know how to brush my teeth. Somewhere along the way, back in my past, I knew how, and it's coming back. Like I can't forget you even if I wanted to. And I like that. I don't want to forget again.” Rather than getting emotional, Bucky simply let his voice grow quieter. He was holding steady, keeping his emotions in check, and he was relieved that he wasn't going to get emotional over talking with Steve. After seventy years of screaming, sobbing, and torture, he was over letting his feelings show. It only got him into trouble. That's what he had always told himself, from the day he'd staggered away from the river and hoped somebody would find Steve before he bled out into the water.

 

“Whatever happens, you can come to me,” Steve promised. “I'll always be here for you. Till the end of the line, just like I said on the helicarrier. Doesn't matter what happens, or happened. You're still my best friend.”

 

Bucky hummed noncommittally, a quiet noise under his breath. He let the silence lay between them as Steve poured a cup of coffee for himself and turned down a similar offer. “What did you think about John F. Kennedy?” he asked suddenly, gaze moving to Steve's face. “Did they tell you about him?”

 

“I never met him, but he seemed like a nice guy. Kind of a tragedy that he died when he did.” Steve had a pretty good idea of where Bucky was going with things and he mentioned the president's death calmly. “Guess they never knew for sure who did it.”

 

“I'm pretty sure that was me.”

 

“Hmm.” Steve knew better than to ask Bucky to elaborate but he also didn't want his friend to think he couldn't talk. "Want a Pop-Tart?"

 

Bucky blinked at him, looking almost owlish in the dim lighting. "Sure." He watched Steve get the box out of the pantry and reached out for the tinfoil package. They both opened the packets in silence. "I could never figure out why you had so many boxes of these things in your pantry until I tried one."

 

A smile quirked at the edges of Steve's lips. "You liked them?"

 

"I don't think Rumlow will ever stop teasing me about the noise I made."

 

Steve laughed. "I can throw away the wrapper for you." After coming back from the trash can, Steve leaned against the counter opposite Bucky.

 

Bucky shifted his body back so that he could sit normally on the counter. He put his hands in his lap and picked at a seam in the plates of his left hand with his fingernails. “I remember shooting him. There was a team working with me that gave cover fire to distract the feds. Once I shot him I was supposed to go back to the extraction point, but instead I ran off. I don't remember where to, now that I'm thinking about it. But it was my first mission in America, and I guess it broke through some of my programming. Took almost a month for them to get me back. Can't remember what I did, but the files said I was found in the northeastern states. Didn't say which one. Guess I was looking for you or something. I don't remember. The mission I met you on was the next one I had in America. They kept me in other places after that. Didn't want me running away again.” His metal fingers clenched together and he winced briefly as the metal scraped against his skin. “Didn't want to lose their trained killer, or should I say their goddamn lap dog.” He clenched his hands angrily and immediately yanked them apart, hissing curses under his breath at the wound he'd accidentally self-inflicted.

 

“You don't have to talk,” Steve offered instantly. “I mean, it's not that I don't want to hear. I'm okay with hearing whatever you want to tell me. It's okay that you assassinated JFK. But I don't want you to hurt yourself because you're sharing more than you're comfortable with. Physically or mentally. Take things slow. Let yourself deal with things before you shove it all out into the open. Be careful with yourself.” He probably sounded a lot like Sam, but he doubted Bucky knew that, and it was the only thing he could think to say.

 

“I didn't even notice it until it started bleeding,” Bucky confessed, tilting his hand so his shadow didn't fall on it and examining the cut on his finger. “It'll be fine by morning.”

 

“You're bleeding?” Steve instinctively stepped forward but stopped himself. “I can – Are you okay with me coming over?”

 

Bucky snorted. “Steve, please. Unless I'm near fugue or don't know you're in the room, you don't have to ask. Just don't rush at me like the ceiling's on fire and I'll be fine. Treat me like a person, not a wild animal.” He fixed his friend with a stern glare, feeling the Winter Soldier persona simmer in his gaze. “Okay?”

 

“Okay,” Steve agreed, seemingly undaunted. He approached Bucky and reached slowly for his friend's hand. When Bucky didn't draw back, Steve took his friend's hand in his own and examined the cut made by Bucky's left hand moving sharply against his right-hand fingers. “It doesn't look deep. Do you want a Band-Aid?”

 

Bucky was about to tell him that a Band-Aid would be stupid and unnecessary, but he caught the look in Steve's eyes just in time. He struggled with the words for a second before he replied. “Yeah, that would be great,” he said, hoping against hope that he'd settled on the right words. “Thank you.”

 

Steve grinned and Bucky knew he'd made the right choice. “I'll be right back, okay?” He disappeared into his room, which Bucky knew connected the bathroom and living room, and came out a minute later with a box of Band-Aids. While Steve rarely used them himself, after a sparring session they were often needed for whoever he was fighting with. Natasha or Clint sometimes dropped by to borrow one, but such occasions weren't common.

 

Bucky held perfectly still as Steve opened the Band-Aid package and wrapped the bandage around his finger. “Good job, Dr. Rogers.” He spoke with a teasing lilt to his voice but meant every word. “It'll be good as new by morning, I'd say. You've got quite the medical skill, it seems.”

 

“Well, my professional Dr. Rogers opinion is that you should go easy on that hand for a couple days,” Steve answered, deepening his voice and adopting a no-nonsense tone. “No heavy lifting or scrapping in alleys. Your trouble-attracting friends will have to go without you for a little while. And find someone to hold those hands for you. They need some tender loving care.” He grinned for a moment, and Bucky understood the concept of mischief dancing in someone's eyes. “Doctor's orders.”

 

“Oh really, _doctor_?” Bucky's eyebrow quirked up. He held his hands out, palms up, and wiggled his fingertips. “Got anyone in mind who can do the job?” A corner of his mind screamed at him not to get close to Steve because it wasn't in the mission parameters, because it was dangerous, but it was the HYDRA corner of his mind and he pushed it into silence.

 

Steve's faint smile slipped from his face, replaced with a look of caring and hope, and he reached his hands out cautiously. Bucky let his hands hover beneath his friend's until Steve took them, laying his thumb across the back of Bucky's hands. “Yeah, I got someone in mind.” Unlike his previous words, now he was completely serious, and perhaps a little bit afraid. “Nice guy, doesn't mind how old you are or the baggage you've got. He'll take you just as you are. Any way you want to be.”

 

Bucky's voice was quite and hollow. For the first time the shadows cupping his eyes were darkly visible, and he dipped his head to let his hair hang over his face. It was hard to see either Bucky Barnes or the Winter Soldier in his actions; instead Steve saw a little boy hiding pain behind a scrappy grin. “Do you see it? The way I'm smearing red all over you?” He withdrew his right hand from Steve's grasp, fisted his hand, and rubbed his knuckles gently across Steve's palm. “Seventy years' worth of blood. Kind of hard to miss, even when you don't want to think about it.”

 

Steve leaned forward and pressed his lips against Bucky's forehead. “I see someone who's perfect.”

 

Bucky leaned back, his bright blue eyes shimmering with pooled tears. “No, you don't,” he protested, but his voice was weak and shaking.

 

“Yeah, I do,” Steve replied, his voice soft but just as unsteady.

 

Bucky was seized by an impulse and decided to act on it. He shifted away from Steve just enough that he could look his friend in the face and asked, “Will you listen to a song for me? Right now?” Steve nodded in affirmation, his head tilting sideways in curiosity. “JARVIS, can you play Bring Me The Horizon? The song name is _Can You Feel My Heart_.” He'd found it on YouTube while exploring modern rock genres and had listened to it on repeat all night long. By morning he was crying and exhausted, and he'd felt like he'd both found and lost a part of himself in the music. Steve focused his gaze on Bucky's hands as they listened. When the song finished Steve looked back up, as close to crying as Bucky was.

 

“I can feel your heart.” Steve whispered the promise solemnly, his voice breaking on the words as he reached out to touch his fingertips to the stretch of fabric over the left side of Bucky's chest. Bucky let out a muffled sob and slid off the counter. He pressed himself against Steve, hands grabbing fistfulls of Steve's shirt as he cried into the fabric. Steve wrapped an arm around Bucky's shoulders and placed his other hand on the back of Bucky's head, stroking his hair. His voice was low and soft. “It doesn't matter if you fugue, or wreck things, or run away. You're my friend. I'll always be here for you, 24/7. Whenever you want to scream and cry, whenever you have nightmares, you won't be alone. It's okay to be broken as long as you want to heal. I'll wake you up from your bad dreams and keep you safe and healthy. You're still my best friend. I'm with you till the end of the line.” Steve realized he was crying himself but he didn't particularly care.

 

“You Punk,” Bucky murmured. In the quiet between their words he could almost hear Steve's heartbeat.

 

“Jerk,” Steve countered with a short, shaky laugh. Bucky would be willing to bet it was a fifty-fifty chance whether his friend started crying again or not. Steve's hand moved absentmindedly over Bucky's hair, carding through the dark locks as they stood there. “You okay?”

 

“In a minute,” Bucky murmured. His answer seemed satisfactory, as Steve was content to continue standing there. “Steve?” There was an inquisitive humming noise in reply. “I think I trust you. And it _scares_ me, scares the _fuck_ out of me, because the last time I trusted someone HYDRA made sure they almost killed me.” He felt the arm tighten ever so slightly around his shoulders, practically saw the look of pain and horror on Steve's face. “But I think I trust you. Which counts for a lot more than if I said I actually did. Can... Can I do something?”

 

“Yeah.” Steve's voice was soft and quiet, appropriate for the moment, and his breath moved like a warm ghost across Bucky's hair. He didn't get a reply for several moments and pulled back to look Bucky in the eyes. “Buck? What did you want to do?”

 

In answer Bucky cupped the back of Steve's neck with his right hand and kissed him. When he pulled away he forced a small smile onto his lips. “That, maybe?” His voice sounded quiet and shy, but his walls were already built up because he was sure Steve was about to pull away from him and tell him to get out.

 

“Yeah,” Steve repeated in the same soft voice, now with a dreamy note in it. “That.” He moved his hand from Bucky's shoulder to rest on his hip, leaned down, and kissed Bucky back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't supposed to finish this fic for another two days, but a friend of mine got impatient... Happy now, Jay? You better be.
> 
> The song is a real song. I found it and it practically screamed 'Bucky' at me once I got over the feels. I've cried over it, Bucky's cried over it, shit happened, I wrote this chapter. You go Buck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AVRCQBc59w
> 
> For the record when it is 3am and I'm not entirely sober, this is what you get from me. I edited it while in perfect control of my mental functions but didn't take anything out, so that doesn't really say much. Pop-Tarts are the perfect comfort food, hands down.
> 
> Next part of the series will show up in about a week. It's going to be very heavily character-centered. Not much is going to happen as far as progression of time, since I'll be focusing on events rather than on a plot-moving storyline. Stuff will happen that will probably be referenced in future chapters, but I don't think you'll need to read it to get what happens in the section after it. Of course sometimes plans change, so read it anyway. Besides, I like the feedback.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay for a new section in the series! Title taken from Guns N Rose's song "Sweet Child O Mine". I really am quite excited for this new part of the work, and it leads quite nicely into what I have planned for the aftermath of this story arc. Comments and kudos much appreciated!


End file.
